Sold by Patricia McCormick is a book about a girl named Lakshmi who lives in a small village in Nepal. Her family is very poor and is struggling to make money because her stepfather gambles away a lot of their money. One day the monsoons come and was away all their crops, and now they have no source of income and have no way to get it all back. Lakshmi’s stepfather says that she must go into the city and work as a maid, however, she will be actually working as a prostitute in India, and Lakshmi’s stepfather lied to get Lakshmi and her mother to agree. She is taken to India and is trapped in a place known as the “Happiness House” by a woman named Mumtaz where she has to work as a prostitute.…
Despite her terrible suffering, she maintains her courageousness. Amari, a fifteen year old African young woman, tore from her nation, and constrained to tackle a rice estate, finds her interior quality by not deserting trust. Copper Sun by Sharon Draper takes after how Amari holds on life on a rice farm, and all the anguish she goes encounters. At in the first place, Amari needs valor to survive her horrendous and sickening outing through the middle area to the Americas. Amari proceeds such countless in the midst of the three month voyage to America, to wind up slave.…
Sadie Frowne was a young girl who immigrated with her Polish parents to New York City. She left with her mother, and planned to stay with her Aunt. Sadie as soon as she arrived in New York needed a job to assist her family, and she seized a job as a live in domestic servant. She made 9 dollars a month with board and lodging. Her family was doing well until her mother passed away on a few months later, and Sadie spent all of her money on her mother’s funeral.…
Throughout the course of human history and during many different societies, women have been treated as subordinates to men. A recurring theme between civilizations is that men are the superior sex, and a woman’s main role in society was to bare offspring. Although Muslim societies are not the first societies to have a patriarchal hierarchy, they have some of the most prominent male-dominated societies that persist into modern times. The role of real women in a genuine Islamic society can be observed through Rafea Anad’s life in the documentary Solar Mamas; however, Disney’s Aladdin also provides another fictional yet sometimes accurate depiction of a women in a similar Islamic society but from a different socioeconomic background. Muslims live…
From birth, humans rely on relationships to survive. Whether it is a baby clinging to it’s mother for food and shelter, or a friends leaning on each other for support relationships keep humans alive. Throughout history, humans have faced massive struggles from racial divides to abuse from those that were believed to be reliable. Night by Elie Wiesel tells the nefarious events of the Holocaust from the eyes of a young Jewish boy, Eliezer. Eliezer manages to escape with his own life from constantly being pushed to survive from his father.…
In a book titled “Lone Survivors” by Chris Stringer, Stringer presents to us his interpretations of the origin of modern humans. Previously, there were two fossils including a tooth and a finger of a female and male, found in the Denisova cave of Siberia which revealed a species that was perhaps indirectly related to both the Neanderthals as well as Homo Sapiens. In addition, they have unique features that are enough to separate them to their own distinct species. These fossils convinced Stringer that perhaps modern humans today are not a pure species but rather a mixture of other hominid groups. Neanderthal genes may still be in us.…
Living in a luxurious house with understanding and patient parents is a dream of every child, right? William John Watkins in “The Beggar in the Living Room” draws a portrait of an orphan who was “lucky” to be adopted by an amazing family of Aunt Zsa-Zsa and Uncle Howard, who act like caring and supportive parents. Finally, the protagonist gets away from abusive step-father and gets into the family of well-educated, supportive people. However, behind various acts of attention, the story examines the complexity of relationships and problem of miscommunication which can force a person to abandon even luxurious home.…
To feel intellectual empathy for a person is to put oneself in the place of others so as to genuinely understand them. In the novel it is easy to feel empathy for most of the characters, because all of them have a reason of the actions that they are doing. Sold is a novel by Patricia McCormick, published in 2006. It tells the story of a girl from Nepal named Lakshmi, who is sold into sexual slavery in India. The novel is written in a series of short, vignette-style chapters, from the point of view of the main character.…
Our history books don’t teach us much about the slave’s perspective on slavery, only the white man’s point of view. They don’t seem to go into detail about how their culture was broken when taken from their homeland, and forced to forget their sacred traditions that were passed on to them generation after generation. A Woman Named Solitude does just that. This inspiring story follows a young girl named Solitude as she tries her hardest to overcome the challenges slavery puts in front of her. André Schwarz-Bart’s A Woman Named Solitude is a striking tale about how slavery can affect the inner self.…
There she stood in a market with other fated Africans, covered by nothing but a dirty piece of carpet (Odell, 12). Things didn’t look good for her. As a girl of about seven or eight years, she was little, scrawny, and inexperienced with hard field work. In addition, her health suffered from the foreign North American weather. What would happen to this girl if no one wanted her?…
Different Relationships, Different Cultures A famous African proverb once stated, “children are the reward of life”. This quote gives us a small example of how important not only fertility, but also relationships, have been within African culture. “The Rich People’s School” gives us a glimpse of the characteristics within traditional family relationships, how they have altered over a span of time in history, and what they have evolved into currently.…
The novel Island of a Thousand Mirrors, traces the life of two families who are each on opposite sides of the Sri Lankan civil war. The story examines how war affects the families both on the Tamil and Sinhala side through the eldest daughter’s perspective. As the story progresses, Saraswathi transforms into a suicide bomber, who eventually sacrifices her own life. The key factors that drove Saraswathi’s transformation were caused by a change in role models, an unforgiving environment, and pressure to accompany the Tamils. One of the key transitions that drove Saraswathi’s transformation was the loss of her family at the age of sixteen.…
According to research by UNICEF, there are more than 400,000 street children existing in India. They live on the streets and take on the full responsibility of caring for themselves. However, they are becoming more vulnerable to many dangers, such as chronic diseases and abuse in their society. To us, a family is a matter of course. However, to these street children, family is a strange word.…
In this ever changing world, individuals are presented with the choice to accept or deny change, but either way life continues on. Past generations lived through several kinds of change such as war, economic struggle, civil rights movements, and so much more. The most significant and recent change of this generation is the impressive advancements in technology. For the most part, the world has transformed into a cyber-social culture. Whether the use of it may be for entertainment, business, or socialization, technology has become a personal attachment to most people.…
Explore the issue of belonging and how it is presented in ‘An Unknown Girl’ (Moniza Alvi) and ‘The Necklace’ (Guy de Maupassant) Although one is a poem and the other a famous short story, both ‘An Unknown Girl’ and ‘The Necklace’ are united by one ubiquitous theme: the issue of belonging. ‘An Unknown Girl’ explores how the narrator, who remains anonymous, finds her sense of belonging in an Indian bazaar through hennaing, with the help of an unknown girl. In ‘The Necklace’, Maupassant tells through realism the tale of a young woman, Madame Loisel, who attempts to leave behind her mediocre life and find acceptance in the upper classes of society. This ultimately results in the loss of a diamond necklace, and Loisel’s spiral into deeper poverty…