The narratives that led us to become the people we are today...

             What does it exactly mean to be a citizen of the floating world? To me, it means to alternate back and forth from your identity of who you are.  Floating can be described as a constant drifting or the changing of a position. Everyone at some point in their lives, floats up and down in the water, and just lets the current of the float take them where it wants.  They let the decisions in life happen without their consent. People question their identity everyday, asking themselves, is this the right decisions, or am I going down the right path in life? Life can be referred to as a float; we just let changes happen to us, while we experience all the different stages of our identity.  In Robert Burton’s book, Artist of the Floating World, he writes, “I borrow from the scientific, physical meaning of ‘flotation,’ meaning buoyancy and suspension between two or more states of being” (10).  It’s important to sit back and try to recognize which life narrative we have chosen for our identity and maybe how to get out of where we are at in life. Every person will mostly likely float between different stages of their identity.  Personally, I float between my identity as daughter, sister, friend, student, and girlfriend. Those are a lot of identities to portray as one single person. Each identity exemplifies who I am as an individual.

  “… to be a citizen of the floating world is to be attentive to the subaltern voices that circulate widely in a media-saturated world…recognizes and acknowledges that the subaltern is actually a part of themselves, that when theya re listening and talking to the subaltern, they are actually listening and talking to parts of themselves that may have been ignoring for a long time” (132).

Bharati Mukherjee teaches the reader that one must embrace the subaltern in her novel Jasmine.  The main character, Jasmine, struggles throughout her life with her identity, including the subaltern aspects of her personality. Jasmine runs away from her old country to help develop a new identity for her. She is an Indian-American, who is fact never forgets where she came from, never forgets her past.  She is constantly running towards her life in America, creates her own meaning of what it means to become American.  Through all the experiences in her life like becoming a widow, getting raped, and feeling that sense of change has really helped her create the person she wanted to become.  She knew what she wanted in life, and knew that all the stages that she went through would help develop the person she became.  Jane (referred to by Bud Ripplemeyer) says, “I know what I don’t want to become”(5). Jane relocates in a place where she can still remain a farmer and still hold on some part of her Indian culture.  Iowa was a place of farming, where she could reconnect with her past, while still creating a new life.  Jane states, “Taylor didn’t want me to run away to Iowa.  How can anyone leave New York, he said, how can you leave New York, you belong here” (6).  She needs to go to a place where she could run away to become someone else, but still hold on to the Jyoti.

 “Time will tell if I am a tornado, rubble-maker, arising from nowhere and disappearing into a cloud.  I am out the door and in the potholed and rutted driveway scrambling ahead of Taylor, greedy with wants and reckless from hope” (241).  Jasmine, like every citizen of the floating world, “recognizes and acknowledges that the subaltern is actually a part of themselves, that when they are listening and talking to the subaltern, they are actually listening and talking to parts of themselves that may have been ignored for a long time” (Burton, 131-32). She can be who she wants to be, and knows that she does not have to lose the Indian person she used to be. She can become an Indian-American woman with her own identity.

“… to be a citizen of the floating world is to recognize and acknowledge the narratives that constitute our identity; furthermore, it is understood that these narratives are constantly in the process of being reshaped and rewritten” (131).

            In Kazu Ishiguro’s book, An Artist of the Floating World, the narrative of the character Ono is caught between two different worlds of floating. He was an artist of a traditional form, ukiuo-e (43), that was well respected. However, not buy his father, which was a source of sadness and frustration that affected him throughout his life. Later in Ono’s life, he moves from the aesthetic principles or of the floating world, and renounces these principles and moves toward a propagandistic form of art fuelled by Japanese patriotism (43). He is now caught between two very different paths and lifestyles; he’s floating between what some may say danger and safety. “Masuji Ono is uneasily sited between these two phases of his career- an artist of the floating world and an artist committed to Japanese imperialism- both of which are seen as being of equivocal nature” (99). Ono sits on the Bridge of Hesitation, on which path to let his life go.  To either promote propaganda in the country or just continue to paint how way he used to.  Ono is unable to really look at his life and choices objectively and realize that he may have made some mistakes. He eventually needed to make a decision about which path to take. Ono departs as an artist of the floating world and becomes a member of the Okada-Shingen Society, a society that portrays the heroism of World War II.   I would say that because, Ono is so easily swayed to leave the Takeda firm, he is a man that has can not hold his ground.  Obviously, Ono wasn’t confident that living as an artist of the floating world was right for him, so he decided to paint in which represented his countries best interest.  By the end of the novel he is able to look back at the choices that he made and acknowledge them, but also able to move on with life and no longer be floating between his past and present life.

           Throughout my life, I am constantly an artist of the floating world.  I feel as if I have a grip of where I want my life to go, but there are so many more stages in my life that need to be experience.  I also feel like I have developed a sense of identity for myself. I know that I should never be stuck in one place, that I need to adventure out in the world, to better understand my identity.  As I’m floating, I can now remember that even though there will be difficulties and choices made I can change, because I know that the characters, Jasmine and Ono are Artist of the Floating World.  Our own narratives are always changeable, we never stuck in one form, and we can also become an artist of the floating world.