42
Diana Hayden in the lane and Eve told her we were in a hurry because she was taking me to catch the bus for school.
p. 88
Lies are repeatedly told, whether they are apparent or hidden. When Matt, the bricklayer, wants to know why Liza is not at school, Eve says coldly, ‘It’s
Easter. The schools have broken up for Easter’ p. 97. Liza, who never knows what Easter holiday is, realizes the vital fact about the statement that her mother
has made years after it. She realizes that Eve has not told a lie because it is the Easter holidays. However, the impression she has given Matt is the false one.
Later on, Eve’s habit on telling lies is learned by her daughter; Liza becomes acquinted in telling lies too.
Her love to Liza is also the reason why Eve does not try to find a boyfriend or a husband to live with. She wants to protect Liza from anything that
can pollute her purity. When she has Bruno as her boyfriend, it is not her who tries to find him but it is Bruno who finds her.
Since Eve does not have a husband, it creates her hunger of affectionate relationships with a man. However, Eve’s close relationship with Liza can reduce
a lonely feeling that comes to her. Weiss in Paloutzian and Janigian 1989: 32 writes that there are two kinds of loneliness: emotional loneliness and social
loneliness. Emotional loneliness is a state where someone feels lonely though he or she is surrounded by many people, while social loneliness is a state where a
person is lonely because of social isolation. Since human is social animal, he needs to have social relationship with his social surroundings. In the novel, to be
isolated physically in a remote area apparently causes loneliness to her, emotionally and socially. Hojat 1989:93 says that loneliness is hard to
43
overcome, but it can be reduced by having someone to love. Socially, Eve’s loneliness of course cannot be healed since she is far away from everyone.
However, by having another person near, especially a family member, Eve can trim down the emotional loneliness that she has.
A close relationship between Eve and her daughter creates a tight bound between them. The way Eve chooses an isolated life influences Liza’s way of
thinking. This mother-daughter relationship is so strong until it makes the same perspective in both persons; Liza never feels bothered with her condition.
‘Didn’t you
want to
go to school? I mean, you know, kids wants friends.’
‘I had Eve,’ Liza said simply, and then, ‘I didn’t want anyone else. Well, I
had Annabel, my doll. She was my imaginary friend and I used to talk to
her and discuss things with her. I used to ask her advice and I don’t think I minded when she didn’t answer. I didn’t know, you see. I didn’t know life
could be different. p. 88
Liza thinks that there is nothing to complain about the way her mother treats her. However bad it is, she does not feel that her mother should be blamed.
‘You poor kid. Bloody awful childhood you had.’ Liza wasn’t having that. She said hotly, ‘I had a wonderful childhood.
You mustn’t think anything else. I collected things, the gate-house was full of my pressed flowers and pine cones and bowls with tadpoles
in and caddises and water beetles. I never had to dress up. I never ate food that was bad for me. I never quarreled with other children or fought or
got hurt.’ He interrupted her and said perpicaciously,’But you know about those
things.’ ‘Yes, I know about them. I’ll tell you how, but not now, not this minute.
Now I just want you to know my childhood was all right, it was fine. She’s not to blame for anything that happened to me, she was a wonderful
mother to me.’p. 89
Based on the descriptions we can see that actually Eve loves Liza much, although Liza thinks that she only loves Shrove. Her love to Liza is so big that she
44
wants Liza to be pure, not to be contaminated by the bad things that often come from the outworld.
d. Eve’s Criminal Acts
Eve’s choice of lifestyles is also obviously influenced by her wish to avoid punishment of the crime she has done. Frolich and Potvin 2002:24 call this
lifestyle determinant as control and coherence, that is a sense of life control and coherence over anxiety, insecurity, and depression.
Having killed three people automatically creates insecurity to Eve. It causes fear of being caught or sent to jail. Although the reason why she has killed
them is forced by the situations, still killing someone is a crime. ‘She didn’t mean me to think
she’d killed him. She didn’t know I’d
been watching. I didn’t tell her. I was only four but somehow I knew what that I’d seen the man come and heard the shot. She got into the
bed with me and I liked that. I was always wanting to sleep I the same bed with her but she’d never let me. She was so nice and warm and
young
. D’you know how old she is now? pp. 49-50 Eve is not the type of person who likes to get involved in other people’s
business. She would rather choose the term ‘mind your bussiness’. The way she isolates herself and her daughter shows her reluctance to be part of other people’s
matter. Thus, she does not want anyone else get in to their life or mind their business in her life. Whenever Eve feels that her safety needs are
threatened, she can do anything to keep them safe, even the most risky ones.
There are some ways she uses to protect her safety needs. The first one is by telling lies. She keeps telling lies about the way she lives her life to anyone
who wants to know about it. She does not want her wish to live in a pure PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
45
environment distracted by others. The second one is by arguing. She does it often to Bruno and Jonathan Tobias. They are the ones who persuade Eve most to leave
Shrove and have a good life with them. However, arguments with Eve always end in failure since Eve is a
tough person
to argue
with. She never
lets herself
fail in
every argumentation because she thinks that she is smarter than anyone else. She
has a high view about her own intelligence. The third way is by hurting anyone who wants to disturb her life. She has done it to the man who comes to the
gatehouse and tries to rape her. Her self-defense forces her to do such things. She even lets the dogs bite the man until he is dying. To satisfy herself of her
own safety, she also shoots the man to death. The same way happens to Bruno, who also disturbs he life by keep on telling her to move in with him in his
new house and persuading her to send Liza to a boarding school. When her safety need is menaced because Bruno threatens her to tell the
police and the Children Protection Department about what she has done to Liza, Eve also murders him and burries him in the woods. Finnally when Jonathan
Tobias tells her that he would like to sell Shrove House because he is bankrupt, Eve also feels that her safety is threatened because she feels she will loose her
home: her only sanctuary. That is why she also murders Jonathan Tobias by shooting him with the shotgun. Unfortunately, this action is seen by Matt who
tells the cops right after that. Eve’s choice of lifestyles is apparently forced by her self defense, that is
her reactions to her needs to protect herself. Maslow calls this as safety needs 2002:14. He says that higher needs become unimportant when one’s life is
46
endangered. From those descriptions we can conclude that another reason that forces Eve to choose her lifestyles is her criminal acts that she has done. To
protect her and her daughter’s safety, she chooses to live isolated from anyone so that no one will suspects them.
B. The Influence of the Lifestyles on Liza’s Life
As Eve has the authority to control what kind of life for herself and her daughter to live, all that Liza can do is just follow her mother’s preference. Eve’s
choice of lifestyles certainly brings some influences on Liza’s life. I analyze them from her reactions to new things, her curiousities, her concept of marriage, death,
and love, her appreciation to the nature, her view about woman, and her view about her life.
1. Liza’s Reactions to New Things
Liza has her own reactions to new things in her life. In this part, I will divide her reactions into two parts, that are her reactions to new people and her
reactions to new environments.
a. To New People
Petri 1981:6 writes that one of the constructs behind motivation is social interaction with others. It
fits appropriately
with Maslow’s
third hierarcy of needs, that is the needs of belongingness and love needs. Since
human is a social being, he needs other people in his life. Liza’s childhood life is monotonous because she only interacts with her
mother. The way her mother chooses to live simply in an isolated place limits Liza’s social life. The isolated life actually makes Liza become frightened of
meeting people. Like a baby who sees a stranger for the first time, Liza is PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
