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a. The Difference Between Men and Women
Her isolated life limits Liza’s interaction with people. She does not have much understanding about the difference between men and women. It also makes
her lack of people names. When Jonathan Tobias gives her a doll, she gets confused in giving a name to it.
‘What shall you call her, Liza? Said Mr Tobias in his softest sweetest voice.
‘Jonathan,’ said Liza That made them both laugh.
‘Jonathan is a man’s name, Lizzie, and she’s a girl. Think again.’ ‘I don’t know any girls’ names.’
‘What were the ladies called who stayed with you?’ ‘Last weekend? They were called Annabel, and Victoria and Claire.’
‘I shall call her Annabel,’ said Liza p.84
For years
she has the understanding that every man is fair-haired and every woman has dark hair. It is because men she has seen are fair-
haired. The milk man is fair-haired, the mail man is fair-haired, and Mr
Frost, the gardener, is also fair-haired. Jonathan Tobias is fair-haired, Matt is
also fair-haired. While the women she has seen have dark hair. Her
mother has dark golden-brown hair, her hair is just the same as her mother, and Annabel, Victoria, and Claire have dark hair too. However, when she
meets a lady while walking with her mother in the lane, she gets confused. That is when Liza has to revise her ideas on her hair colour-sex-linkage theory, for the
lady’s hair is blonde p.70. Liza’s lack of understanding about men and women is basically caused by
her mother’s choice of lifestyle. Her mother who chooses to live a simple life, far from any places, causes Liza not to have any friends. This means she will not have
a standard of comparing one person to another. Learning is gained through PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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observation Petri, 1981:6. Liza learns by observing her environments of new things in her life.
b. The Little Room
For almost ten years living in isolation, Liza never asks her mother to take her to the village or town. She never demands anything from her mother. In fact,
she only wants to know about one thing, that is the little room next to the morning room. Once Liza ever asks her mother about the room, ‘Why is the little room
next to the morning room always locked up?’ p.64. Her mother just says that she must have misled the key. However, Liza knows that her mother is hiding
something from her since her voice tone is often full of hesitation and worries whenever she asks about the room. Everytime she follows her mother, she always
re-checks the room. While Mother is running the vacuum cleaner over the bedroom carpets
Liza goes into the morning room and looks at the door that is always locked p.86. Until one day, she finds the room unlocked. However, she is regretful
because what she finds is completely different from what she thinks she will see before.There are no bodies nor dead brides as she thinks before p.114.
‘What was it?’ Sean asked, ‘A TV?’ ‘Yes, but
I didn’t know that then. I couldn’t think what it was.
The extraordinary
thing was that I wasn’t very interested in it. I was dissaponted. You
see I’d given
that room
such a terrific
build-up in my mind, I thought there’d be at least some amazing wild
animal in
there or
a box of
jewels, treasure really, or
even a skeleton. I’d seen a picture of a skeleton in one of the
books in the library. And all there was this box thing with a
mirror that didn’t even work like mirrors are supposed to.’ p.115 From the description we can see that Liza has a high imagination about
things that she is curious to know more about. However, her obidience to her PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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