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The impact of realism in literature
The impact of realism in literature
Essays on realism in literature
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Recommended: The impact of realism in literature
Verisimilitude achieved through series of Vignette- a Socio-Realistic study on Sold by Patricia McCormick
From the time immemorial literature imitates the society and social issues. In the well-developed technological era gadgets are costlier than human because slavery and human violation are still excising in the form of modern sexual slavery, human trafficking and physical abuse. Blue cross is there to save animals but no cross is there to stop the people who cross the borders and violate human rights. Sold written by Patricia McCormick is a rare realistic fiction, which depicts the sufferings of girls and women, who are forced into prostitution. The series of Vignettes delineates the Socio- Realism, and that makes the work a compulsively
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In the novel, action speaks louder than characters. Each character in the novel represents the dark reality of the society. Locution and the composition of provocative verses leave gaps, which should be filled up by the readers. The character of Lakshmi is the epitome for many unknown and unnoticed Lakshmies, who are the victims of Trafficking and Sexual Slavery world-wide. Through Lakshmi’s stream of Consciousness the readers get conscious about the atrocities done to poor children and women for the sake of money.
Vignette is an evocative brief description of incidents, characters and objects in a rhythmic sequence. Incorporation of symbolism, imagery and allegory marks the uniqueness of the novel. Social Realism is basically an art movement. The artist brings the portraiture of striking social issues in literature, painting, and photography. The novel is an exemplification of suppressed victims in the contemporary world.
Lakshmi, the thirteen year old protagonist is sold by her heartless gamble-loving Step-Father for Eight Hundred rupees. A local woman sends Lakshmi with the city woman, Bimala. She takes the journey to the darkness with a belief that she is going to work as a maid under a rich woman in the city like her friend
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She becomes one among the other girls in that place; she shares a room with five members; Anitha, the half-frowning girl, Pushpa, the coughing woman, her two children Harish and Sahanna. Lakshmi’s thirst for education purges her to steal Pushpa’s son Harish, the David Beckam boy’s books and later he becomes her teacher. Pushpa is a widow and she develops disease, so Mumtaz asks her to sell her daughter Jeena, but she refuses, so Mumtaz throws her out without humanity. Anitha, once tried to escape from the place she was caught and the gundas broke her face, that incident left her face frown forever. Lakshmi happens to develop feeling for a street boy who sells tea and magazins for the girls. One day he gives a bottle of coca-cola to her as a gift and his master beats him and sends him out of that place. She scares for two girls in the house; Shilpa, mumtaz’s helper and Monica, the best earning girl in the house and soon she is going to leave the place. They are rude to everyone, but later she learns that Shilpa is there of her own choice because from her childhood she is there. Whereas, Monica leaves the place but her own family refuses to accept her. So, she comes back but she develops a disease so she is thrown out of the house. Lakshmi’s friendship and compassion with other girls gives a soothing feeling for her to endure.
What happens when a young girl is betrayed and sold into a world of harassment and betrayal? Her father dies, and her mother and she are “taken in” by a “man.” She is sold by her so-called stepfather to a woman named Mumtaz. Mumtaz owns a place called the happiness house. This is where the main character and a few other girls live. This is the place where men come, and girls were forced to do things that they didn’t want to do. Mumtaz found ways to not let the girls pay off their debt, and they could only leave after they are diseased. Lakshmi is a young girl, who is forced to lose her gold (innocence) at a young age. Throughout her journey, she realized
A theme that I quickly noticed was innocence. Lakshmi was told that she was going to the city to work as a maid, but while her step-father sold her, she thought, “I don’t understand at all. A great deal of money has just been paid for work I have not done yet” (McCormick 55). Even while Uncle Husband told her to lie and while she watched a girl get humiliated for disobeying, Lakshmi did not know the amount of danger she was in until she stood at Happiness House in her uncomfortable, new dress and was adulterated by a stranger (McCormick 102). McCormick strengthened the novel with symbols, and a recurring one was books. Dispersed in the pages were different books that came to represent different things to Lakshmi as she grew and developed. Initially, Lakshmi hated Harish, the son of a Happiness House worker, because he had his own storybook (McCormick 151). Every day, Lakshmi would steal the book and “pretend she was in school again with Gita and her soft, moonfaced teacher” (McCormick 155). The storybook went from a source of jealousy, to a loved memory, to the bond between the beautiful friendship of Harish and Lakshmi as he taught her to read the American stories inside. Another book was Lakshmi’s notebook that recorded her debt and earnings. She was convinced that her calculations would be enough to prove she had earned her way home. In this way, the forbidden notebook came to symbolize her
I agree with the quote "A work of literature must provide more than factual accuracy or vivid physical reality... it must tell us more than we already know.". I feel like when reading a book it shouldn't be all about facts or just story lines. A book should should mix things up so it makes us want to read them and not focus on one thing. The Book Sold tells us facts about sex trafficking but it also provides us with something else, how a life of young girl is sold into sex trafficking by her step father so she can help the family with money. The second book "Eleanor and Park" talks about vivid details and also has a story line about relationships.
Social injustice is revealed throughout the novel and Hosseini really goes in depth and indulges the reader by portraying every aspect of the life of women in Afghanistan at the time period. He also reveals most of the social injustice women still have to deal with today. This novel is based on two young women and the social injustices they face because of their gender. Gender inequality was very common in Afghanistan
Mumtaz, the ruler of the brothel, runs the house with brutality and a sense of street smart. Cheating Lakshmi of her paltry earnings, Mumtaz tells the girl she will never leave until she can pay off her family’s debts, which will never happen given the way the process is set up. She is living what is essentially enforced slavery. Despite her dire circumstances, Lakshmi continues to live by her mother’s words “simply to endure is to triumph” and slowly forms friendships with Shahanna and Anita who enable her to make it through her new struggles (McCormick 16). She learns to speak English from “this David Beckham boy” (McCormick 140). In time, Lakshmi meets a disguised Ame...
Lakshmi lives in a brothel called “The Happy House” where she was treated exceedingly poor. Moving to the happy house came as a shock to Lakshmi because of how badly the woman who ran it treated her. “Then Mumtaz flies at me. She grabs me by the hair and drags me across the room.” (103).
Symbolism is a poetic and literary element that interacts with readers and engages their feelings and emotions. In Sold, thirteen-year-old Nepali girl, Lakshmi, is forced to take a job to help support her family. Involuntarily, she ends up in prostitution via the Happiness House; this sex trafficking battle forces Lakshmi to envision her future and possibility of never returning home. The very first vignette of the novel speaks of a tin roof that her family desperately needs, especially for monsoon season. At the brothel, Lakshmi works to pay off her debt to the head mistress, Mumtaz, but cannot seem to get any sort of financial gain in her time there. Both the tin roof and the debt symbolize unforeseen and improbable ambitions, yet she finds the power within herself to believe. How does Lakshmi believe in herself despite her unfathomable living conditions and occupation?
Imagine having your parents sell you into prostitution and you don't realize it until it's too late. How would you feel? Sold by Patricia McCormick is novel about a girl, Lakshmi, who lives in the mountains of Nepal and is forced to leave her home due to a monsoon. After the disaster, her home, crops and livelihood and family is left alone and in need of help. In order to get this help, Lakshmi is sold off. However, Lakshmi does not notice that she is sold off until she is abused and treated like an animal by Mumtaz in the happiness house. A thought of betrayal sweeps over her, and because of the depression, she has no hope for life and cannot stay positive. Throughout this book, there are many people who have helped Lakshmi gain hope and positivity,
Harish, Shahanna, and the hugging man are all character that supported Lakshmi and helped her to endure Mumtaz’s and her customers’ cruelty within the Happy House. They all helped her with friendship and kindness to stay strong, giving her a reason to keep pushing forward even when she is put into the pain and suffering in human trafficking. Patricia McCormick managed to intensely capture the reality of human trafficking and sex slavery in her novel Sold, after traveling to India and Nepal to research the customs and hear the stories of other girls rescued from the terror of human
First Lakshmis eagerness to leave the brothel shows how bad it really was. Lakshmi was very eager to leave the brothel and all those memories. So
The centre of economy and the focus of many lives, the power of money is punctuated by the difference in wealth in Bhima and Sera’s lives in The Space Between Us. The importance of money is stressed in A Thousand Splendid Suns with the contrast between Mariam’s father’s prosperity and her mother’s poverty and the difference in Laila and Mariam’s lives before and after war. Centred on the newly abolished caste system, the distinction between Bhima and Sera’s financial situations underlines the difference money makes in their society. While Bhima is forced to live in a slum, Sera enjoys the luxury of her home and the employment of Bhima. Another luxury Bhima can’t afford is to welcome Maya’s baby. Instead she is forced to watch her granddaughter suffer from the emotional effects of an abortion. While Sera eagerly awaits the birth of her own grandchild she is the one who financially facilitates the abortion of Bhima’s great-grandchild. Furthermore, because of the pre-existing social constraints of the caste system, Bhima is not permitted to sit on the same furniture or use the same dishes as Sera. Similarly, Mariam’s life is also restricted by her mother’s pove...
In a nation brimming with discrimination, violence and fear, a multitudinous number of hearts will become malevolent and unemotional. However, people will rebel. In the eye-opening novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns written by Khaled Hosseini, the country of Afghanistan is exposed to possess cruel, treacherous and sexist law and people. The women are classified as something lower than human, and men have the jurisdiction over the women. At the same time, the most horrible treatment can bring out some of the best traits in victims, such as consideration, boldness, and protectiveness. Although, living in an inconsiderate world, women can still carry aspiration and benevolence. Mariam and Laila (the main characters of A Thousand Splendid Suns) are able to retain their consideration, boldness and protectiveness, as sufferers in their atrocious world.
As well as observing the assault Mariam mentally and physically endures, Laila also shares experiences of abuse with Mariam. The use of a second perspective allows Hosseini to reinforce this idea of gender inequality in the reader’s minds. In doing this, Hosseini allows the audience to comprehend the brutality of the women’s lives. This is expresses in the terrible bursts of violence Rasheed inflicts upon Laila. "Laila did not notice that Rasheed was back in the room.
Along with the many treasures that began to rise to the top, came a beautiful woman standing on a lotus flower. This beautiful woman was Lakshmi, who had returned to the world. With her return came the defeat of the demons, and they were chased from the world. The major part of this story that we see is the success and fortune that Lakshmi brings upon those who seek help and work
Realism deals with the social problems of real people in real places and in the present. She used it in the story by using the characters as a point or having real life events that could happen in the real world happen to them. During the book, Frank always got so drunk and then he couldn’t control his anger issues. But marie didn't help any by always wanting to hang around with