The Role Of Lakshmi In Patricia Mccormick's Sold

Sold

“I pound on the door. I howl like an animal. I pray. I pace the room. I kick the door. But I do not cry” (McCormick 108). Lakshmi is a young girl from Nepal that gets sent away to work for her family as a maid, she thinks. She actually is getting sent to the Happiness House, which is a prostitution house where young girls are forced to give themselves to men. Lakshmi is a very strong young girl who goes through a lot in the course of this novel. No matter what, she perseveres through it all. In the novel Sold by Patricia McCormick, the main character Lakshmi perseveres through the time when she is in her village, to when she arrives at the Happiness House, and even when she finally escapes it.

Lakshmi lives in a village in

She thinks she is going to be a maid for a rich family, but it is much worse than that. Lakshmi gets sold again to a prostitution house and endures a lot when she first gets there. “‘You will take men into your room,’ she says. ‘And do whatever they ask of you. You will work here, like the other girls, until your debt is payed off’” (McCormick 106). She learns where she has been sold to and what for. She has a debt of $20,000 that must be payed off by selling herself for money before she can leave. “I decide to think that it is all a nightmare. Because if what is happening is real, it is unbearable” (McCormick 124). She gets through the transition of being in this horrid environment by convincing herself that it’s all a bad dream. This shows perseverance because she finds a way to cope with the traumatic events she is going through to stay alive and get herself out of this terrible ordeal. But what she does not know yet is how much strength it’s going to take to make it through these events until she finally is

Lakshmi deals with what is happening to her by getting lessons every day on how to communicate in English by a little boy whose mother works in the Happiness House. “And then he is gone. Leaving me to consider how long it has been since tomorrow meant anything to me” (McCormick 163). When he first offers to give Lakshmi these lessons, she regains hope because of her love of learning. She loved going to school when she was back in her village, and she is excited to get lessons now from a boy who is able to still attend school. A little while later an American man comes and asks Lakshmi if she wants to go to “a clean place.” She does not answer because she doesn’t believe that she can trust this man, but she does take his card. Then, a raid happens, and they take Shahanna, the girl who’s been taking care of Lakshmi sense she arrived at the Happiness House. Now, she has almost nothing left to keep her going, but she still does. Lakshmi has been doing the math on how much of her debt she has so far paid off, and takes it to Mumtaz, her master of sort, who says she is wrong. This completely crushes her spirit. Not too long after this another American comes asking if she wants to go to “a clean place”, and he also has a camera with pictures on it, showing happy and healthy girls in this “clean place.” She says yes this time and, now she waits for him to come