Point of View

Patricia McCormick tells her novel “Sold” in the first-person limited-omniscient narrative mode from the point of view of main character and narrator Lakshmi. This is done for several different reasons. Most prominent is that those young girls sold into sexual slavery are denied their freedom and their voice, and allowing Lakshmi to tell the story of her time spent in sexual slavery gives a voice to the voiceless. The first-person aspect of the narrative also allows the reader to understand the inmost thoughts, and feel the inmost things that Lakshmi thinks and feels as she experiences them – and allows readers to see what such barbarity is like through the eyes of an innocent 13-year-old girl. The limited-omniscient aspect of the narrative is also important for two reasons. First, it allows for a sense of suspense and drama, with neither the reader nor the narrator knowing...