The smallest things often have the biggest impact. Patricia McCormick develops this idea in her books Sold and Never Fall Down. In Sold, a young girl named Lakshmi gets torn out of her familiar life in the mountains in Nepal and sold into sexual slavery in India. In Never Fall Down, Arn is unfortunate enough to be captured and forced to work in a camp by the Khmer Rouge during the Cambodian genocide. Both Lakshmi and Arn must find ways to survive, even though they have been abandoned in their darkest hours. One way they do this is by remaining hopeful and never allowing themselves to look at only the negatives, no matter how tough it gets. In both books, McCormick develops the theme hope is crucial to perseverance and survival through the protagonist's
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When everyone else has given up in Never Fall Down, Arn decides "I need to survive. I need to eat . . . now I kill this little animal. Why? Because every minute I have to think about surviving" (McCormick 147). When life is at its worst, he finds the will to persevere and the willingness to do whatever is takes by thinking of how valuable life is, and not focusing on superficial feelings of disgust. The author conveys Arn's conflict by revealing how he must make tough decisions between necessity and morality on a regular basis. She then connects this conflict to the theme by including his thoughts when he makes each choice. Furthermore, Arn's internal conflict develops the theme when he realizes that "long time ago I kill all hope in myself . . . now here is my little sister. My family. Someone who love me. Alive. And I say 'Now I know you are still living, I will live, too'" (McCormick 129). Before he meets his sister, it seems like Arn has no reason to live, no reason to keep suffering, if it will only lead to a lonely, painful death. But, since he found his sister, he has something positive he can hold on to that will motivate him to keep fighting. By leading Arn to a dark, desolate place in his mind where his emotions clash in an epic tug-of-war, then revealing how one simple act of goodness did so much to harden his resolve, McCormick is successful in using this conflict within Arn to develop the idea that hope and optimism are necessary to perseverance. Similarly, Lakshmi faces internal struggle when she must decide whether to go along with her owner's plan and be a sex slave, or escape and discover a new life. Unlike, Arn, her circumstances do not include frequent death threats, so she is able to retain more hope from the beginning. She is tantalizingly close to freedom, yet unable to get it because she had been caught in a web of
When everyone else has given up in Never Fall Down, Arn decides "I need to survive. I need to eat . . . now I kill this little animal. Why? Because every minute I have to think about surviving" (McCormick 147). When life is at its worst, he finds the will to persevere and the willingness to do whatever is takes by thinking of how valuable life is, and not focusing on superficial feelings of disgust. The author conveys Arn's conflict by revealing how he must make tough decisions between necessity and morality on a regular basis. She then connects this conflict to the theme by including his thoughts when he makes each choice. Furthermore, Arn's internal conflict develops the theme when he realizes that "long time ago I kill all hope in myself . . . now here is my little sister. My family. Someone who love me. Alive. And I say 'Now I know you are still living, I will live, too'" (McCormick 129). Before he meets his sister, it seems like Arn has no reason to live, no reason to keep suffering, if it will only lead to a lonely, painful death. But, since he found his sister, he has something positive he can hold on to that will motivate him to keep fighting. By leading Arn to a dark, desolate place in his mind where his emotions clash in an epic tug-of-war, then revealing how one simple act of goodness did so much to harden his resolve, McCormick is successful in using this conflict within Arn to develop the idea that hope and optimism are necessary to perseverance. Similarly, Lakshmi faces internal struggle when she must decide whether to go along with her owner's plan and be a sex slave, or escape and discover a new life. Unlike, Arn, her circumstances do not include frequent death threats, so she is able to retain more hope from the beginning. She is tantalizingly close to freedom, yet unable to get it because she had been caught in a web of