K. Vangelder Post #2

Being human means to allow oneself to feel compassion and understanding to the emotions and hardships of other human beings. There is a place within all humans that strives and desires to be close with other beings. Alongside this is the human instinct to treat others with kindness because they are humans as well. It is only when this basic principle of humanity is somehow stripped away that humans begin to take advantage of and mistreat one another because to them it has somehow become rational to do so. Once someone looses their reason to believe and trust others to care and love them without means to understand their cruelty they loose the means of doing so themselves. This continues the cycle of destruction and oppression.

Sold, a novel by Patricia McCormick, is a direct example of how people loose their basic sense of humanity after being hurt. At the Happiness House, Shilpa, Mumtaz’s assistant is cruel and mean to the other girls. Shilpa has been lost in her humanity after being mistreated not by Mumtaz and the men she has taken to bed since a very young age, but by herself and the bottle that she cannot get herself to put down. Because of this she has had to experience things that no one could possibly rationalize to themselves why they disserve to be treated like so. Shilpa then takes out her anger and frustration at the world to continue to oppress the other girls. She tattles on the other girls on their wrongdoings instead of trying to fix her own. She calls Lakshmi stupid and spits at her in an attempt to make herself feel better. Shilpa is an example of how it is only human to want to be loved and be cared about as she strives to be approved by Mumtaz. If Shilpa’s sense of what it means to be human was not damaged at such a young age than perhaps she would not be lead to treating others poorly just to feel accepted herself.