Cara Conaway Post 5- Farewell Sold

     Every child is told stories. Bedtime stories are children's first introduction to worlds unlike their own. We learn things from our own experiences, and we learn things from other's experience. Many lessons are taught not by a scolding from a parent or a reprimanding from a teacher, but are taught by literature and by the pure knowledge and advice that people offer to the world. Stories are the driving force of the imagination, teaching us to be creative and to ponder things outside our realm. I know that many of the stories I was told as a child have stuck with me, and some of the ones about how life is have changed and been molded as I've grown. My perception of the world around me can be altered with just a sentence, giving stories the power to sway the masses. Without stories, we would lose our empathy and our ability to put ourselves in others shoes. Our opinions would be absolute, without knowledge of how others think. I think that stories can be beneficial to society, but they can also become deceiving if the story itself is a lie.
     In the book Sold by author Patricia McCormick, the main character, a young girl named Lakshmi, lives in a small village in Nepal. There she hears many stories. Some are about life outside her town or about how she should act as a woman.  Lakshmi perspective on the world is very narrow, and this causes her and many of her people to be naive as to what is really going on. Like when her "Auntie" comes to take her away to the big city to work as a maid and make a better life for her family. Lakshmi believes wholeheartedly that she is going to work hard to make an honest living in an honest profession, but her beliefs are suddenly shattered and burnt when she is thrust into the life of a prostitute. She had no way to stop it, but maybe if the stories she had been told betrayed the bad side of the big city, she would have thought better. Her earlier fantasies of a golden city with nice, rich people turn out to have been hiding the dark side of people all along. "There are no golden roofs here...'There is a mistake,' I tell her. 'I'm here to work as a maid for a rich lady.' 'Is that what you were told?'" (105.) Lakshmi's ignorance turns out to force her into the worst situation possible. If only she had been told a different story.