Jasmine

Jasmine Summary | Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 Summary

Jasmine is the story of a young Punjabi woman named Jasmine whose life takes her from India to the United States, where she lives out many different destinies. As the novel begins, Jasmine is a seven-year-old girl. An astrologer informs her that she will be widowed and exiled one day. The astrologer tells the girl that one cannot challenge destiny. As Jasmine runs away from the astrologer, she falls and a twig cuts her forehead. This makes it appear as if she has what the Oracle calls a third eye, a way of seeing things that others cannot.

After being tended to by her sisters, Jasmine swims in a sun-kissed river until she bumps into the decayed carcass of a dog. A horrible stench arises from the dead dog, a smell that haunts Jasmine to this day, every time she takes a sip of water in her home in Baden, Iowa in the United States. Jasmine speaks now from the perspective of an adult woman who lives with a man named Bud Ripplemeyer, in a small house in Iowa. Bud is a banker in the small town of Baden, Iowa. He first met Jasmine when his mother took Jasmine to the bank because Bud was looking for tellers.

Bud runs the First Bank of Baden, which is located in a strip mall. Bud wants to marry Jasmine even though Jasmine is less than half his age and not of the same ethnic background. Jasmine is pregnant with Bud's child, and Bud would like to be married before the baby is born. From Jasmine's kitchen window, she can see Darrel Lutz in the cab of the monstrous tractor he rides through his farm fields. Darrel inherited the farm when his father died choking on some Mexican food while on vacation in California. Many Iowan farmers vacation in California in January after the money has come in and before taxes are due.

Darrel is a young man, and the thousand acres is an overwhelming challenge for someone his age to operate on his own. Speculators have offered Darrel half a million dollars for the land, which they hope to convert into a golf course like those operated in California. Darrel seeks Bud's advice on the financial aspects of the deal, and Bud cannot believe that Darrel could consider the family farm "land." The two men are friendly but at odds on this issue.

Darrel is also kind to Jasmine and tries to make her feel welcome in this part of the country, where most of the women are blonde from their German heritage and have their hair done at Madame Olga's beauty parlor. Darrel has even mail-ordered exotic spices so that he can try to cook some of Jasmine's cultural dishes. Jasmine and Bud have a seventeen-year-old adopted son named Du, a Vietnamese orphan who came to the couple when he was fourteen. Du and his friend Scott enjoy watching Monster Truck Rallies on TV, and Jasmine remembers that Du's first question to them was whether or not the family had a television.

One day, Jasmine sees Darrel exiting a convenience store in town. When she stops to talk to him, she realizes that Darrel's purchase is a case of beer. Bud has always talked about the warning signs of young farmers who take to drinking, so Jasmine offers to drive Darrel home. Jasmine can tell that Darrel has already had too much to drink, which probably accounts for his outburst about Bud's advice on not selling his land and also the reluctance to loan Darrel any more money. Jasmine thinks to herself that Bud must have his reasons, because in Iowa, those sorts of decisions are made on character. Bud is an excellent judge of character.

As Darrel continues to ponder the decision to sell the farm, he raises hogs and practices the exotic recipes Jasmine has shared with him. Du is growing into a fine young man, and Jasmine hesitates a moment to watch him through the crack in his bedroom door before entering. Jasmine offers to help with Du's homework, but Du is studying Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, a subject that is literally quite foreign to Jasmine.

Jasmine marvels at the objects that Du has managed to collect over the short time he has been here. She realizes that his bleak past drives him to accumulate things, just as Bud's mother collects pieces of aluminum foil because of the ghost of the Great Depression. Du gives Jasmine a rhinestone ladybug pin and tells her that she is meant to have nice things.

Tonight, Jasmine is not only a mother but also Bud's wife, as she tempts the man whom she loves and who is confined to a wheelchair due to a gunshot injury. Jasmine's rituals of seduction please Bud. She cannot help but remember the times when he was vital and impulsive, and she is filled with love for that man as well as the one in front of her now.