Jasmine, the novel's protagonist, is born in Hasnapur, India. She is the fifth daughter of her family to be born, which means that she will not have any dowry money for her future marriage. Also, Jasmine's discussion of her life in India mainly focuses on the gender discrimination she experiences there, which proves to be a major theme for the entire novel.

A quotation that shows the gender discrimination that Jasmine faces in India includes: “If I had been a boy, my birth in a bountiful year would have marked me as lucky, a child with a special destiny to fulfill. But daughters were curses. A daughter had to be married off before she could enter heaven, and dowries beggared families for generations” (Mukherjee 39).

Sam Pagliuca