Imagine a cool mountain breeze blowing through your hair and goats baaing in the back background. This is what Lakshmi grew up with. As a young girl she would play with her goat and water her plants and take care of her little baby brother. Her step dad was a gambler and did not hold onto money well. The family lost so much money that they could no longer support the family. Lakshmi’s step dad sold her to a woman where she was told that she was helping make money for her family. In reality he just needed to get rid of her so he could pay for the people living in the home ( her brother and mom). As she is fighting for her safety in this new world that she lives in Lakshmi must be brave and face any fears she has. Lakshmi has developed the trait …show more content…
Lakshmi lives in a brothel called “The Happy House” where she was treated exceedingly poor. Moving to the happy house came as a shock to Lakshmi because of how badly the woman who ran it treated her. “Then Mumtaz flies at me. She grabs me by the hair and drags me across the room.” (103). Mumtaz is a very aggressive woman who runs the happy place and she punishes the girls that do not do as the men or she says. “There is a slicing sound, and a clump of my hair falls to the floor.” (107) Mumtaz makes it almost impossible in every way for the girls to leave. She will scar them and make them ugly or she won’t give them medicine to help them get better. She makes them too weak or scared to fight back. While she was at the happy house she met a girl named Shahanna that she became friends with over the time she was there. “It’s Shahanna, the girl with the nut-brown skin, holding a cup of tea.” (114) Shahanna took care of Lakshmi and they treated each other like sisters. When Lakshmi was taken away not only was she escaping to freedom she was leaving everyone who helped her along the way. Even though the story stops abruptly Lakshmi will never forget who helped in that terrible place. A person who goes through something as traumatic as this will come out as a different person and Lakshmi definitely remained …show more content…
‘How much do you want for her?’” 52-53. Lakshmi’s dad was a man with bad habits and he would usually gambel any money her family made. When his habits get the best of him he makes a decision that was made to easily on his side. He sold Lakshmi to a mumtaz, and from then on her life changed forever. “Krishna is shy when he passes me in the village, his sleepy cat eyes fixed on the ground in front of his feet.” 18 When she lived in the mountains she was promised to a boy named Krishna. Lakshmi looked forward to this so when she got her period it meant she could be with him soon. She always watched when he would come home and she was happy when he would walk by. Leaving Krishna was hard for Lakshmi because that was her leaving promised future. When leaving Lakshmi was brave because she kept an open mind about her undecided
What happens when a young girl is betrayed and sold into a world of harassment and betrayal? Her father dies, and her mother and she are “taken in” by a “man.” She is sold by her so-called stepfather to a woman named Mumtaz. Mumtaz owns a place called the happiness house. This is where the main character and a few other girls live. This is the place where men come, and girls were forced to do things that they didn’t want to do. Mumtaz found ways to not let the girls pay off their debt, and they could only leave after they are diseased. Lakshmi is a young girl, who is forced to lose her gold (innocence) at a young age. Throughout her journey, she realized
In Great Expectations, Pip is set up for heartbreak and failure by a woman he trusts, identical to Hamlet and Gertrude, but Pip is rescued by joe who pushes Pip to win the love of his life. Similar to Gertrude in Hamlet Miss Havisham becomes a bystander in Pip’s life as she initiates the play that leads to heartbreak several times and she watches Pip’s life crumble due to her teachings. The next quote shows Miss Havisham explaining to Pip the way she manipulated his love Estella to break his heart every time. “‘but as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings… I stole her heart away and put ice in its place’” (Dickens, 457). This quote makes it clear the Miss Havisham set Hamlet up for failure by making him fall for a woman he could never have.
Lakshmi does not understand what is happening, only that they are happening to her. The experiences Lakshmi goes through can relate to everyones’ personal experiences in life. For being such a young girl, Lakshmi’s life is anything but perfect. Living in a small village in Nepal, her family is not wealthy and her step father drinks and gambles what little money the family does have. Lakshmi, at such a young age, does not understand, however, Ama says “Even a man who gambles away what little we have on a fancy hat and a new coat, is better than no man at all” (McCormick 38).
...stepfather received when he sold Lakshmi is all her family gained from the sexual enslavement. For me, the physical tin roof needed for an improvement of shelter disappeared amidst the struggle for freedom, but Lakshmi showed compassion and effort in order to return home. Reclaiming her life involved risking everything, yet her willpower and purpose proved to be enough after one year of forced prostitution. The symbolic relationship between the tin roof and her debt is consistent throughout every vignette. In the end, both objects dissipated leaving only one completed goal: personal triumph. Her suffrage was inspired by Ama’s words: “Simply to endure … is to triumph” (McCormick, p. 16). The tin roof and debt symbolize her struggle as a woman and having the power to fight for freedom.
She woke up realizing that there is one day less than yesterday. Lakshmi realizes that “all I know is that each time one leaves, my debt to Mumtaz grows a little smaller”(130). This expresses that after each day ends there is one less day that she will be in the tortuous house. This gave her hope to try with all her might every day so Lakshmi can get a lot of money which would lead her to return home. She kept an account of everything to calculate exactly how much time she would be there and try her hardest even though she hated doing it. This gave her hope to continue what she was doing and try harder. Lakshmi was always positive in every situation she had to face. In the novel Sold, it expresses that “if you look hard enough, chaos turns into the way letters turn into words”(76). This quote explains that she was positive in all situations. Even at the lowest point of time, she was optimistic and looked at the brighter side. She had the hope that one-day thing was turn to something good and life would get better, but she just has to try harder. She determined that she will work harder to achieve her goal which was to leave the brothel. Her main strength was having hope and being optimistic in every situation in faced in the
The novel, ‘Between shades of gray’ written by Ruta Sepetys was published in 2011. In the novel, various character traits can be distinctively seen between the protagonists and antagonists. In the book, the main protagonist, Lina Vilkas is one of the characters with various traits such as hopeful, brave, caring, helpful and determined. Within the book, these traits can be thoroughly seen from the beginning to end.
Before finding out about her biological parents, Asha acts very immaturely and inconsiderately. The first example portraying Asha's unsophisticated behaviour takes place while Asha has a disagreement with her parents because of her poor grades. After her mother offers to helps, she replies, “'I don't need a tutor, and I definitely don't want your help,' Asha says choosing her words to sting her mother'” (Gowda, 150). Here, Asha is deliberately trying to hurt her mother's feelings and is acting very inconsiderately. Also, the fact that she is yelling at her mother, even though her mother is only offering to help, showcases her immaturity.
Imagine having your parents sell you into prostitution and you don't realize it until it's too late. How would you feel? Sold by Patricia McCormick is novel about a girl, Lakshmi, who lives in the mountains of Nepal and is forced to leave her home due to a monsoon. After the disaster, her home, crops and livelihood and family is left alone and in need of help. In order to get this help, Lakshmi is sold off. However, Lakshmi does not notice that she is sold off until she is abused and treated like an animal by Mumtaz in the happiness house. A thought of betrayal sweeps over her, and because of the depression, she has no hope for life and cannot stay positive. Throughout this book, there are many people who have helped Lakshmi gain hope and positivity,
After that happened the days passed by and she started developing
A theme that I quickly noticed was innocence. Lakshmi was told that she was going to the city to work as a maid, but while her step-father sold her, she thought, “I don’t understand at all. A great deal of money has just been paid for work I have not done yet” (McCormick 55). Even while Uncle Husband told her to lie and while she watched a girl get humiliated for disobeying, Lakshmi did not know the amount of danger she was in until she stood at Happiness House in her uncomfortable, new dress and was adulterated by a stranger (McCormick 102). McCormick strengthened the novel with symbols, and a recurring one was books. Dispersed in the pages were different books that came to represent different things to Lakshmi as she grew and developed. Initially, Lakshmi hated Harish, the son of a Happiness House worker, because he had his own storybook (McCormick 151). Every day, Lakshmi would steal the book and “pretend she was in school again with Gita and her soft, moonfaced teacher” (McCormick 155). The storybook went from a source of jealousy, to a loved memory, to the bond between the beautiful friendship of Harish and Lakshmi as he taught her to read the American stories inside. Another book was Lakshmi’s notebook that recorded her debt and earnings. She was convinced that her calculations would be enough to prove she had earned her way home. In this way, the forbidden notebook came to symbolize her
Does being the antagonist always mean you are evil? In AELA this year, we read a short story called Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Rudyard Kipling. In the story, the main character, a mongoose named Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, is washed out of his home, and taken in by a family of people. In the backyard, there are two snakes, Nag, and his wife Nagaina. Rikki has to fight the snakes in order to ‘save’ himself, and the other creatures in the backyard. That is, however, only Rikki’s side of the story. This essay is about Nagaina, and how she may be more than just an evil antagonist. In the story, Nagaina is not only sly, but also intelligent and caring. Almost everything Nagaina did was for her children, still eggs at the time.
Mumtaz, the ruler of the brothel, runs the house with brutality and a sense of street smart. Cheating Lakshmi of her paltry earnings, Mumtaz tells the girl she will never leave until she can pay off her family’s debts, which will never happen given the way the process is set up. She is living what is essentially enforced slavery. Despite her dire circumstances, Lakshmi continues to live by her mother’s words “simply to endure is to triumph” and slowly forms friendships with Shahanna and Anita who enable her to make it through her new struggles (McCormick 16). She learns to speak English from “this David Beckham boy” (McCormick 140). In time, Lakshmi meets a disguised Ame...
Another form to earning some money is turning to prostitution. This is where the one beautiful young widow with long hair comes to play. Kalyani was forced into prostitution by the head of the ashram Didi in order to keep the place by ends meet. Didi’s friend Gulabi takes her regularly to the upper class homes where the men pay her for her “duty”. In addition, the ashram is alongside the Ganges River.
Next let us examine Mariam's plight. She is denied the chance to go to school. "What's the sense schooling a girl like you? It's like shinning a spitspoon." She lives with a cruel mother. "You are a clumsy little harami. This is my reward for everything I've endured. An heirloom-breaking, clumsy little harmi"(4). She has a neglectful father. "Mariam kept thinking of his face in the upstairs window. He let her sleep on the street. On the street. Mariam cried lying down"(35). Her mother commits suicide and Mariam blames herself. "You stop that. These thoughts are no good, Mariam jo. You hear me, child? No good. They will destroy you. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault no". Mariam nodded, but as desperately as she wanted to she could not bring herself to believe him"(44). She is forced into marriage to a man she does not love. "I don't want to," Mariam said. She looked at Jalil. "I don't want this. Don't make me"(47). She is sent to live in a strange city were she does not know anyone. She has a physically abusive husband. "Then he was gone, leaving Mariam to spit out pebbles, blood, and the fragments of two broken molars"(104). Her husband is cruel and says hurtful words to her. She can not do anything right in his eyes. When he is not ignoring her he is being verbally or physically abusive towards her.
In this story, Rukumani, the protagonist faces a number of external conflicts; the conflict between her and her traditional Ceylonese Tamil family, the conflict between her and her mother, the conflict she has with her younger brother who messes up things for her, to name a few.