Sold by Foster Care
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The novel Sold, by Patricia McCormick illustrates intertextuality with the poem Girl, by Jamaica Kincaid. The poem Girl is a poem all about a young girl becoming a woman in life and the woman that she looks up to for a good example of how she wants to be. In the novel Sold the main character Lakshmi and the other young girls should be looking up to Mumtaz but they scorn her because she leads them to a life of prostitution. Mumtaz is the reason they will hate the life of a woman.
The novel consists of a few pages about months without rain. This reference is important because when there is no rain Lakshmi and Ama must each take twenty trips to village spring to get water and bring it to the rice paddy. Lakshmi stepfather does not even go to his card game. When there is a great amount of days without rain it is hard for Lakshmi and family to get food and they starve often. The starvation leads the stepfather realizing they need more money hence the reason he sells Lakshmi to “Auntie”.
This novel revolves around human trafficking, which is proving Foster is right and that “it is all political.” The fact that this is illegal makes it political. It is a problem all over the world that is hidden from everyone.
One of the meals in the novel is the hot chili. Whenever the cook makes this it means that someone has betrayed Mumtaz. The hot chili is a form of punishment because
Mumtaz puts the hot chili on a stick and put it inside the girl. Another “meal” is o meal at all. Mumtaz starves the girls whenever they refuse to sleep with the men. When she starves Lakshmi, Lakshmi is use to hunger so this is not bad of a punishment for her but eventually she gives in.
Based on the criteria on p.119 Lakshmi and Anita are the two characters who deals whit many of these issues. They are both young and trapped to this life of selling their body. They both fear this life and wish it to end. Two young girls living a life under prostitution ruled by Mumtaz. Lakshmis stepfather and Mumtaz are the two unlikely to fit these matches. Mumtaz is not good with children because of the way she is treating these young girls. She has not sacrificed herself for anyone all she thinks about is the money she owns by human trafficking. The stepdad is selfish and only thinks about himself. He sells Lakshmi just to get more money for food and card games. He deprives her of the feeling of growing up to be a successful and happy woman.
The “baptism scene” in the novel is when the American comes back to the house with the police and an American lady from the picture. This is when Lakshmi gains the feeling of hope again. She gave up on it at frst but when she sees them she realizes she is free. Hope does exist to her now. She finally feels like she is herself, Lakshmi.
“My name is LakshmiI am from Nepal. I am fourteen years old.”