Jasmine Literary Elements

Literary Fiction

The 1980s in Punjab, India; New York, NY; Baden, Iowa

This novel is narrated from a first-person perspective by Jasmine, also the protagonist of the novel.

The tone of the novel moves between somber, hopeful, and at times, bewildered by conventions of American culture.

The protagonist is Jasmine, and while there are various antagonistic characters, there is no single central antagonist. Jasmine is trying to reckon with her past and create a life for herself in the U.S., and it is this challenge that defines the narrative.

Jasmine faces several major conflicts over the course of the novel. She has to decide whether to follow the traditions with which she was raised or follow Prakash in resisting the prevailing conservative order. She has to decide, after Prakash is murdered, whether to immigrate to America alone. She is conflicted as to whether she should go on living or stick to her plan of throwing herself on a pyre made from Prakash's clothes. And finally, she has to decide whether to stay with Bud or leave with Taylor for California.

The climax of the story comes right at the end, leaving no space for a "falling action," when Jasmine decides to leave Baden and make a life with Taylor and Duff.

Prakash's death is foreshadowed by the fakir's prophecy in Chapter 1 as well as the scene where Prakash argues with and insults a group of Khalsa Lions outside of Jasmine's house. This scene was what initiated her attraction to him, but ironically is also what puts a target on his head.

Mukherjee often uses understated language when describing extreme horror or trauma. Excessively simple and direct sentences allow the content to stand alone. For example, when describing her father's death, she says, "Pitaji died the next May. He died horribly. He got off a bus in a village two hours west of us and was gored by a bull" (58).

In Chapter 1, the fakir alludes to the Shiva Purana by referring to the story of Behula and her husband Lakhindar.

Jasmine later refers to the George Bernard Shaw play, Pygmalion, when recalling how Prakash wanted to shape her personality after his own ideal woman. She says, "Pygmalion wasn’t a play I’d seen or read then, but I realize now how much of Professor Higgins there was in my husband. He wanted to break down the Jyoti I’d been in Hasnapur and make me a new kind of city woman" (77).

The novel makes heavy use of astrological imagery to tie the physical world to the concept of fate and the universe. Here are two examples of Jasmine relating her pregnancy to astrological and astronomical imagery:

"In Hasnapur Dida told stories of Vishnu the Preserver containing our world inside his potbellied stomach. I sit, baffled, in the dark living room of our house in Baden, loaded rifle against my belly, cocooning a cosmos" (223-24).

"An early ice crusts potholes and crisps the shrubs in our yard. My stomach domes under my skirt. A whole new universe floats inside me" (235).

"Fact is, there was a difference. My father was right to notice it and to let it set a standard. But that pitcher is broken. It is the same air this side as that. He’ll never see Lahore again and I never have. Only a fool would let it rule his life" (43).

Jasmine's father's relocation from Lahore to Hasnapur after the partition of India parallels Jasmine's move from NYC to Iowa; her father always complained about the difference in culture. He missed the urbanity and poetry of Lahore, and found the rural people of Hasnapur to be beneath him. Jasmine also comments on the cultural differences between New York and Iowa; however, she's more open to learning about the values of each culture than her father was.

In Chapter 26, Jasmine personifies Darrel's hogs. She says, "Unfed hogs are like unfed babies" (234).