Brick Lane

by

Monica Ali

Hasina Character Analysis

Nazneen’s younger sister, and the secondary protagonist of the book. Hasina is as beautiful and rebellious as Nazneen is plain and timid. At sixteen she shocks her parents by entering into a love marriage with Malek, the young nephew of the village sawmill owner. Then she leaves Malek to avoid his beatings and trusts her future to Mr. Chowdhury, who finds Hasina work as a sewing woman in a garment factory where she is very happy for a time. When she is fired for a rumored liaison with a co-worker, Mr. Chowdhury, furious at what he sees as her betrayal of their relationship, brutally rapes her. Hasina, broke and depressed, resorts to prostitution, eventually meeting her second husband, Ahmed, who later deserts her. While living in a home for fallen women, Hasina is discovered by Lovely and James, a wealthy couple who employ her as a house maid. The reader becomes familiar with the ever-changing circumstances of Hasina’s life through her letters to Nazneen, which, while written in broken English, are smart and savvy, full of wry observations about the disparities between men and women and the hypocrisy of the rich and powerful.

Hasina Quotes in Brick Lane

The Brick Lane quotes below are all either spoken by Hasina or refer to Hasina. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Displacement and Dissociation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Why should we give dowry? I am not a burden. I make money. I am the dowry.”

Related Characters: Shahnaz (speaker), Hasina
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

This is what happen and afterward I cry. All the time I thinking my life cursed. God have given me life but he has curse it. He put rocks in my path thorns under feet snakes overhead. Which way I turn any way it is dark. He never light it. If I drink water it turn to mud eat food it poison me. I stretch out my hand it burn and by my side it wither. This is what he plan for me.

Related Characters: Hasina (speaker)
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Fly way and find some water I tell him. But he do not fly just sit there never stretch the wing and call like as if all his brothers better join there on roof where he find some secret like paradise.

Related Characters: Hasina (speaker), Nazneen
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 277
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 1 Quotes

Silent. Nazneen fell asleep on the sofa. She looked out across jade green

rice fields and swam in the cool dark lake. She walked arm-in-arm to school with Hasina and skipped part of the way and fell and they dusted their knees with their hands. And the mynah birds called from the trees, and the goats fretted by, and the big, sad water buffaloes passed like a funeral. And heaven, which was above, was wide and empty and the land stretched out ahead and she could see to the very end of it, where the earth smudged the sky in a dark blue line.

Related Characters: Nazneen (speaker), Hasina
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Brick Lane LitChart as a printable PDF.
Brick Lane PDF

Hasina Quotes in Brick Lane

The Brick Lane quotes below are all either spoken by Hasina or refer to Hasina. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Displacement and Dissociation Theme Icon
).
Chapter 7 Quotes

“Why should we give dowry? I am not a burden. I make money. I am the dowry.”

Related Characters: Shahnaz (speaker), Hasina
Page Number: 119
Explanation and Analysis:

This is what happen and afterward I cry. All the time I thinking my life cursed. God have given me life but he has curse it. He put rocks in my path thorns under feet snakes overhead. Which way I turn any way it is dark. He never light it. If I drink water it turn to mud eat food it poison me. I stretch out my hand it burn and by my side it wither. This is what he plan for me.

Related Characters: Hasina (speaker)
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 132
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

Fly way and find some water I tell him. But he do not fly just sit there never stretch the wing and call like as if all his brothers better join there on roof where he find some secret like paradise.

Related Characters: Hasina (speaker), Nazneen
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 277
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 1 Quotes

Silent. Nazneen fell asleep on the sofa. She looked out across jade green

rice fields and swam in the cool dark lake. She walked arm-in-arm to school with Hasina and skipped part of the way and fell and they dusted their knees with their hands. And the mynah birds called from the trees, and the goats fretted by, and the big, sad water buffaloes passed like a funeral. And heaven, which was above, was wide and empty and the land stretched out ahead and she could see to the very end of it, where the earth smudged the sky in a dark blue line.

Related Characters: Nazneen (speaker), Hasina
Related Symbols: Animals
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis: