Amy Goelz Post # 3

"If you aren't part of the solution, are you part of the problem?"

This is a question we ask ourselves whenever a situation next to us occurs, one that we don't have to be part of. Our place in that situation is totally up to us, and we don't have to listen to others to sway our opinions. However, I feel that if the problem that is happening is really bad, you not helping will likely cause the situation to escalate. This, in a way, means that you are the problem if you aren't helping, which explains everything. When you view a situation like this happening, you have come to a fork in the road. Either turn one way, which is to avoid being part of a "problem" or anything, or turn the other way, and risk your safety for doing what's right. This imaginary fork in the road is difficult for people to make a decision about by first glance, so they often wait until they see what is the most safe or self-satisying to them. Although it isn't gallant nor brave, doing what is best for yourself is also a good idea. Once you have put yourself in a situation and it has turned out to be a bad idea, how do you turn back?

In Sold, Lakshmi is faced with the option to do what is right and get punished otherwise, or do the wrong thing, leading to others pain, but not get punished for doing so. When she is staying at the "Happiness House", she arrives and nobody tells her what is going on. She is under the impression that she is simply working for a family or mistress and continues to think that until she arrives. She is confused for a while, until she is forced into a room with an old man and her thoughts take a turn for the worst. This is a horrible situation, and to top it off she had no idea what was going on before or after that. If she had been eased into the situation, perhaps it might have been a more pleasant introduction. The world she has been brought into is a sick, twisted world, full of sly behavior and gross rules. Lakshmi drifts into a downfall of numb sadness, knowingly throwing her life away. Her problem is that nobody told her what was going on, and she got taken advantage of all because of that. There had been a new girl that came to the Happiness House, also unaware of the dull existence she was so close to beginning. Lakshmi saw them bringing the girl in and knew what she was in for. She knew that in a matter of days she will understand what her entire future is, and she will never feel truly happy or aspiring again. Lakshmi keeps to herself instead of warning the girl, for she knows that if she tells her, she will be severely punished. However, I feel that she sees some of herself in that girl, and feels terribly about not saying anything. Even though she thinks she is doing the right thing in saving her own life, she is somehow killing another. A couple days later she talks to Anita. Anita tells her, "That new girl, the one in your old room- yesterday morning Mumtaz found her hanging from the rafters" (pg. 143). This shows that even though she is staying out of the problem and keeping herself safe, the worst possible outcome happened and resulted in someone else's death.