Poverty In Khaled Hosseini's Sold

Horrific images are brought to mind when reading the novel Sold, the tale of an innocent Nepalese girl that is born into a family so poor that they have no choice but to sell her into prostitution at just thirteen years old. Too young to fully understand what is happening, the girl, Lakshmi, is under the impression that she will become a maid for a rich family and bring honor to her name; by the time she arrives at the so-called “Happiness House”, she knows that that is not the case. Lakshmi is suddenly thrust into a world of confusion, torture, and every kind of abuse that exists, only to learn that her suffering is not even helping her family. Mumtaz, the leader of the brothel, takes all the money that is earned for herself and makes sure …show more content…
According to the Afterword to the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, Afghanistan has been a center of “war, hunger, anarchy, and oppression” that “forced millions of people to abandon their homes and flee Afghanistan to settle in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.”(Hosseini). The wars are mostly over land, which is a huge deal to countries with little money or capital. Poverty and overpopulation lead to the hunger described, and people will riot as anarchists to show their discontent with the situation. Citizens turned to refugees when they were made to flee, showing how poverty further dehumanizes its victims. Hosseini also experienced the land first hand and shows how the poverty itself dehumanizes the people it affects. Here, he describes it in excruciating detail: “I met families who lived on less than a dollar a day. They spent entire winters cooped up in holes dug underground. I visited villages where families routinely lost ten to fifteen children to the elements every winter and every summer. The people I met drank water from muddy rivers and died of easily preventable diseases. They had little shelter and no access to health care facilities, schools, food, or jobs. I was devastated.”(Hosseini). Already made refugees, the people that had just lost their homes had to live off of dirty water, no money, and any survival skills they had. Most people in the U.S. are able to lead productive lives and spend their time improving society or providing services for others, but in places like this, the only thing that is ever considered is how they will get through the day alive. Needs as basic as clean water, shelter, and food can’t even be guaranteed, and that leaves the sufferers dehumanized with the most animalistic ways of