Theme Of Slavery In Sold By Patricia Mccormick

First, only Ama, Lakshmi's mother, values her. The men in the story do not. She has a stepfather who is a lazy gambler and Amas second husband, Gita Lakshmi's best friend, and Lakshmi's pet goat. Lakshmi’s mother loves her daughter, but Lakshmi’s stepfather doesn’t like her, but he acts like he does. Lakshmi’s stepfather wanted to sell her for about 1,000 rupees so he thinks she is worth something. Lakshmi wants to get more money for the family and better supplies. Lakshmi’s stepfather tells Ama that “Lakshmi wants to work in the city”.

Every day begins with fear; every night ends with a different strange man. In a touching novel about the horrific life of a thirteen year-old Nepalese girl, Lakshmi, Patricia McCormick uses a fictional story to portray the lives of real girls. McCormick introduces the reader to the harsh truth about the existence of sex slavery. She paints a vivid picture in the reader’s mind of the brothel, where deceitful adults take an unknowing Lakshmi, called the Happiness House. Sold tells the struggles and perseverance of young girls to make the reader consider what life is like for women living in brothels or with pimps and how it affects them after their release or rescue. Having an optimistic outlook can get one far in life, but when considering

The book Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson gives us a flashback into the slave market located in New Orleans during the 19th century. While many of the information we obtain from slavery is all written account, this book puts everything together to help us get a better idea of what the auctions, slave trades, and antebellum slavery were actually like. The concepts discussed in the book revolve around the rise of domestic slave trading, slavery as compared to a commercial market, the formation of slave community bonds, economic dependence on the slave markets, turning people into a price point, buying based on complexion, and the performance of a slave sale.

Lakshmi decides to become a maid to help her family with financial issues. Baba sells lakshimi to this in town clerk for 10,000 rupees. 10,000 rupees is equivalent to $153.70. Lakshmi sets out on foot with this so called “aunt” to the city to work. Lakshmi then gets transferred to this guy who tells her to call him her husband. Lakshmi travels across the border from Nepal into India. Eventually Lakshmi reaches the happiness house where she is told that she will work there. Lakshmi is confused when she sees the other girls there. She is confused because she is wondering why do they have on all this fancy clothes to work. Eventually Lakshmi realizes what is going on. Lakshmi meets this woman named Mumtaz. Mumtaz is the owner of this happiness house. Mumtaz purchases Lakshmi for 10,000 rupees. She then cuts Lakshmi's hair short incase she ever decides to run away. Lakshmi then gets locked into a room. She is locked into a room in case she tries to run away and because she is special. She is special because she is still a virgin. People pay extra for a virgin. Mumtaz brings a old man into Lakshmi's room. Lakshmi is very frightened because she doesn't know what is

The lack of knowledge in Sold as to where Lakshmi is going is astounding. Lakshmi comes from a small village in Nepal where knowledge of the outside world isn't really common. Lakshmi is made to believe that she is going to be a housemaid

Friendship is hard to find, even in a place of comfort. Somehow, Lakshmi finds this friendship in the most unmerciful of places. As Lakshmi adapts at her new cruel living space, she is, at first, not fond of the girls who live there. Lakshmi, unfamiliar with their ways, asks “how they can eat and laugh and carry on as normal when soon the men will come” (McCormick 91). However, throughout her journey at the brothel home, the girls “have been nothing but kind to [her]”, and “[teach her] everything [she] need[s] to know to survive” (McCormick 208). Not only are they kind to her as a newcomer, but also after she has endured what they do to make money. They give her “a cup of tea and a leftover heel of bread” knowing what it is like to be in her position and that nothing can make up for it (McCormick 128). When Lakshmi finally has a chance to leave, she hesitates, for “[she] cannot walk away from [her]... friend” (McCormick 262). She does not want to leave her behind after everything they have been through. Even though her conditions in the brothel were disturbingly gruesome, she found friends among the girls around her. I learned that no matter how difficult the situation, a friend can be found to better the

When reading Bennett it talks about the marriage of many black and white, and how that this is not something that just happen. This is something that has been going on for a great number of years. It talks about white slave owners raping and having their way with slave women, and having children with their slaves women. In looking at our society nowadays mixed couples married couples or dating it’s part of a normal culture. There are still many people that we as a people should stay with our own race.

Throughout the article “Diary of an Escaped Sex Slave” Sreypov talks about the harshness of life in the brothels in Cambodia. Rape, torture and starvation are all events Sreypov has gone through and overcome to become a stronger person and a person who helps girls who were just like Sreypov, escape the horrors of the brothels. Sreypov story is somewhat relieved through Patricia McCormick’s “Sold” . In which Lakshmi has to face the struggles of a hard life in the brothels after being tricked into thinking she was going to be a maid by Mumtaz, a cruel unforgiving pimp who tortures Lakshmi and makes her life a living hell. Everyday is a struggle for Lakshmi as she is raped and tortured. Lakshmi’s patience and determination to live pays off whenever

Sold” is a novel by Patricia McCormick published in the year 2006. The story is about Lakshmi the protagonist who is a thirteen year old girl living in a village in Nepal with her family. Being desperately poor and the fact that later the Himalayan monsoons destroy the family’s crops she must go take a job in the city says her stepfather. Told that she will work as a maid in the city she is taken to India but the harsh reality is that she is sold into prostitution. Lakshmi is trapped and faces the horrors of being in a brothel. It is a haunting story talking about sexual slavery and how a heinous act still plagues the world.

One of Comstock’s targets was Emma Goldman, whom he unsuccessfully tried to have imprisoned for her unconventional writings about “the white slave trade.” Indeed, Goldman was one of the few public figures who challenged the assertions in the newspapers at that time surrounding the white slave panic. She was truly prophetic when she described that movement as a “toy” that “serves to amuse the people for a little while, and it will help to create a few more fat political jobs--parasites who stalk about the world as inspectors, investigators, detectives, and so forth.”

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping begins when the doctor says, ‘It’s a girl’.” said Shirley Chisholm. Women in who are born into patriarchal societies face unimaginable struggles and horrors everyday. The article Forced Prostitution tells the reader about the struggle Indian women face everyday in their patriarchal society. They are raped and dehumanized on a regular basis because of the way their society works. Much in the same way Lakshmi from Patricia McCormick’s novel Sold, about sex trafficking in Nepal, is dehumanized. She is sold to a prostitution ring in India by her stepfather, who can no longer provide enough money for food, shelter, and his gambling addiction. Both of these texts show that societies where patriarchal

No one said life would be easy. Every day is filled with trials and tribulations which must be overcome to get to the next. What we face here in the United States is, as we see it, extreme. We see homeless people, families struggling to get by, stock market failing, gas prices rising, unemployment going up, and much more. But elsewhere, their struggles are different. Their obstacles in life are more challenging than our measly problems in this first world country. The sex trade still exists, slavery among women and children, trafficking of girls and drugs, and so much more. From the book Sold by Patricia McCormick comes a story about a girl named Lakshmi and her struggles from the mountains of Nepal carried to Happiness House where she was sold into the sex trade, and through it all is able to learn that, “ simply to endure, is to triumph” (16).

The novel is divided into two sections, referred to as part one and part two. the first section of the novel portrays everyday life of an Indian family with their daughter Uma as the main character of the section. Throughout part one of the novel, the author tries to take the reader into a journey across the Indian social practices and family relationship. She does this through the way she portrays different members of the Indian family and other individuals who are depicted as different members of the Indian society. In this section, the reader can see the family structure, family members responsibilities, and expectations from other members of the family and the society in general. Apart from showing the reader the family life, she also tries to present situations and topics that shows the reader some important issues regarding the Indian educational system and the society attitudes towards it. Desai does this by portraying an Indian family which priorities men’s education over women’s. This is seen first through mama who is a house wife expected to stay home and take care of her family while her

By survival, Narayan does not mean continuity of mere physical existence, but a striving for dignity in the battle with society and circumstances. His protagonist Savitri is a victim of either man, or of authority, or of a particular social set-up. Today, a women’s goals are expressively defined, first her indignation

We follow Lakshmi’s story along with other characters and get a glimpse of the affect and outcomes of sex slavery. This novel not only shows the suffering of it but how it is still continues to happen in the modern world. I was sadden by the fact how sexual slavery still exist, in the novel McCormick mentioned how the girls watched ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’ every day and when an American who came to the brothel with a digital camera it made me realise the time frame of the novel is present day. Human trafficking is the trade of humans, mostly used forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. Human sex trafficking is a real issue that everyone ignores because of the horror. The way slavery is portrayed in this book is different to we see it in news and media. In the quote, “I am afraid. Afraid that Mumtaz will beat us senseless. And I am afraid that the Americans will shame us and abandon us in the streets. But most of all, I am afraid to imagine a life outside this place.” This indicates the psychological and physical brutal torment Lakshmi and girls go through in the Happiness House. They have been manipulated to fear the outside world and the very people who can save them.