Andrea Dewar

ENG 3UI
Mr. Kemp
July 23, 2010
Loss in Sold
 Everyone experiences loss during their lifetime and for some it becomes a cycle where

one loss leads to another. In the novel Sold by Patricia McCormick, the occurrence of loss

becomes much more prevalent for Lakshmi after she is purchased by a woman who takes her to

live at Happiness House in India. The experience of becoming a prostitute in a brothel takes

away Lakshmi's childhood innocence. As she becomes more accustomed to life without the

purity of that in Nepal she loses herself to the ways of prostitution, changing her into a very

different person. This person she has become does not trust people the way Lakshmi did,

allowing the hope she used to hold close to escape her grasp. When placed in a difficult situation

for an extended period of time people begin to lose the qualities that keep them positive and

grounded. This causes them to become judgmental of themselves and take on characteristics of

people they never imagined they would become.

The realization that Lakshmi would not be released from Happiness House without

paying off her debts forces her to do things that transform her from an innocent child to a woman

who has experienced pain and vulgar acts far beyond something that a girl of her age, or any age,

should have to perform. After her virginity is taken along with her purity, Lakshmi "[catches] a

sight of a girl in the mirror. She has blackened tiger eyes and bleary chili pepper lips. She looks

back at [her] full of sadness and scorn and says, You have become one of them," (McCormick,

122). Lakshmi does not see herself as a girl who is doing whatever she can to make money for

her family and to stay alive, but instead she sees a girl who has lost her way and become a person

without morals. Along with not recognizing herself, living in the house with Auntie Mumtaz has

taken away what she viewed to be her positive qualities, tainting her feelings about herself and

judging the girl she has become. The irony formed by the way she feels while living in

Happiness House lessens the value of Lakshmi’s dignity and innocence. The word ‘happiness’

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promotes the ability to love, to enjoy one’s self and to be surrounded by the things they care for.

These capacities are very easily felt by a child, naive to the world’s evils. For Lakshmi, however,

as she loses all of those abilities, she also loses her childhood innocence that allows for

unconditional, genuine delight. The name “Happiness House” sounds as though it is a positive

place for people to be, but it is only positive for the men. This cheapens the girls and their right

to have opinions and social standing. As a child, Lakshmi recognized the higher importance of

men in her culture, but did not view women as unimportant like the way they were treated at

Happiness House. An evil, sinful treatment of women and girls is experienced during the time

she spends at the brothel, destroying the innocence Lakshmi took with her to India.

Lakshmi’s innocence was a very strong part of her character as well as her ability to put

others’ needs first, but throughout her time at Happiness House she changes a lot. She loses some

of the values she holds for herself and changes her approach to success. When Lakshmi thinks, “I

hate him more than ever now. For catching me at my make-believe game. For seeing that I want

his life for my own,” (158) she is jealous of the David Beckham boy’s schooling and freedom.

She used to be happy and confident in herself, but since she began living in the brothel she has

become a new person who longed to be the old Lakshmi again. She pretends to be back in Nepal

reading and writing at school, while in fact she cannot read the boy’s book because it is not in

her language. Without permission from the boy, she takes his book from the trunk under his

mother’s bed and looks at the pictures. This is unlike the old Lakshmi; stealing was not

something that she believed in. But in the Happiness House, a new situation, she ignores that

moral and borrows something that is not hers. Lakshmi also abandons her moral of staying pure

and respectable because at the brothel she must make money to be released. She decides that her

release is more important than her dignity and states to herself, “Here at Happiness House there

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are dirty men, old men, rough men, fat men, drunken men, slim men. I will be with them all. Any

man, every man. I will become Monica. I will do whatever it takes to get out of here.” (227). The

desperation in this statement expresses the power that Happiness House has over Lakshmi. Down

to her core she is a good person, but she has unwillingly become what her culture views as a

disgrace. She has lost all fear of what she is becoming, and instead tries to be better at her sinful

slavery. Lakshmi has lost herself through the trials she must face and has become a different

person because of it.

After all else is lost, hope is the last thing a person can rely on to keep them positive and

willing to push through the difficult times. When she first moved into the house, Lakshmi trusted

that her situation would be able to right itself in the end. As the days and weeks progressed,

however, she lost faith in herself and Auntie Mumtaz’s honesty causing her to “realize [she is]

already buried alive,” (148). Lakshmi had nearly given up on her hopes of paying her way out of

the brothel and this made her feel miserable. This despair left her somewhat uncommunicative

with the other girls. She had difficulty talking to anyone at this time, especially the American

man who claimed that he wanted to take her to live in a safe home. Two men come to the brothel

to talk to Lakshmi and she finally asks the tea carrier to call the Americans to save her. She is

very excited to be taken from Happiness House, but as the days go by she begins to lose faith

that they will truly help her. She often thinks about the Americans during the days that they do

not come, and on one day she says to herself, “It has been three days, and still pink-skinned man

hasn’t returned with the good policemen. How stupid I was to believe in him and his digital

magic,” (253). The man she trusted fully just moments before is letting her down, so Lakshmi is

upset and hopeless. She becomes even more upset because of this break of trust and blames

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herself for believing his promises. When all hope is lost in a situation, Lakshmi judges herself

and makes her believe that she is responsible for the way she is feeling.

Loss takes a large emotional toll on people, and this is definitely felt by Lakshmi. In a

traumatic situation for such a lengthy period of time, a person begins to lose characteristics that

make them who they are. They judge themselves and stray further away from the person they

were in the past. This is shown by Lakshmi and her progression from an inexperienced and naive

girl to a woman without innocence. Many of her values and characteristics change throughout

the months as well and she loses hope in life. Since it is so easy for things to disappear from our

lives and ourselves, it is important to appreciate what a person has before they lose it.

Andrea Dewar

ENG 3UI

Mr. Kemp

July 23, 2010

Work Cited

McCormick, Patricia. Sold. New York: Hyperion, 2006. Print.

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