The Environment around Sophie and Natasha

79 But Natasha still gets her fortune that she does not experience what Sophie has. Natasha’s family has always been together. Her parents always live together happily and still love each other. And those conditions of her family make Natasha feel guilty of what she has done by having affair with Alastair. “But you come from an ordinary house and your family bicker at each other, and your mum gets pissed and in a flap. It just makes you more human, somehow.” 422 Her parents were so lovely. Why didn’t she see more of them? But she knew. It was because she was ashamed that her personal life couldn’t meet their ridiculously high standards, especially after recent events. 419 As said by Beebe in his theory of friendship 412, a good friend will always accompany his or her friend both in happiness and in sadness or difficulties. A friend also can support, help, and share the view of life with others that then it is known a term of soul mate. Hence, friendship also plays roles in one’s personality that a friend can influence one’s self-identity. As experienced by Sophie, a person will rethink about himself or herself if others prefer his or her friend than him or her. Sophie always shares her life with others, and in doing so, she also needs others to share their experiences and to help her whenever she is getting confused with her life and needing help. It can be described from the quotations below: Sophie’s nose felt so out of joint it was time to go straight to casualty. So Tash who’d been too busy to hook up was willing to drop everything to go round to Marcus and Lainey’s. And Marcus had called her first. Yet more proof that everyone preferred Natasha to her. But who could blame them when her friend’s life was so much more exciting? 97 As Lainey spoke, Sophie saw the life she’d secretly imagined for herself vanishing. No more balls. No more first class travel. No more adoring men who were going to rule the country buying her Heat and Vogue. No more lovely house in Kensington, for which Sophie had great redecoration plans. 80 But Lainey was right. Lainey was always bloody right, which was why she had the perfect life and …. 291 …. , but she simply couldn’t bring herself to admit that she felt in need of so much help, help with things that pretty, confident, optimistic Sophie mastered so effortlessly. It was hard enough being around Sophie as it was. She loved her, she truly did, but in comparison with her friend she always felt so inadequate. 101 For Natasha, Sophie is her very best friend she ever had. Sophie always accompanies and helps her whenever she is in sadness and getting problems, though sometimes she feels jealousy with her. Sophie is always there to give supports and advises for Natasha during her bad time because of her affair with Alastair. Sophie successfully assures Natasha to change what she has done and decided so that Natasha can rise her life up again and has a new view of her own life. Here, the quotations below support the statements above. Sophie laughed. “Tash. Tash. Bad things happen to everyone. No one’s immune. But this isn’t the worst thing that will happen to you. You’ll get over it. In time you’ll realize finishing with Alastair was the best thing that could ever have happened to you.” 355 “Who else? He’s left emotional bombsites all over London and beyond. And Tash is obsessed with him although she won’t admit it. I hate to see whats become of her. She used to be such a feisty girl but now she’s a shadow of what she was. Everyone’s talking about it at work. It’s horrible. Natasha thinks their affair’s a secret but she’s becoming a laughing stock.” 433

c. Problems Faced by Sophie and Natasha

Unavoidably problems may bring effect on one’s personality. As explained in Phenomenological theory, a person can be so gloomy or even getting stress because of his or her problems he or she is facing. Lauer, 1958: 17. In Psychodynamic theories, problems are also connected to one’s personality involving id, ego, and 81 superego Mischel, 1976: 34. And the same problem faced by Sophie and Natasha is being unmarried in their age of thirties makes them get stress of their life. Almost thirty-two, unmarried, poor. How could this have happened to someone so golden, who had been promised so much? 40 Besides that, Sophie is used to worrying about her daily life, how she will pay all of her bills, how she satisfies herself whenever she gets tired or bored, and even how she can effort her wedding party she always dreams of since she has failed before to get a better job and to maintain her relationship with her ex boyfriend even with his fiancé. It makes Sophie desperate and lose her confidence. Sophie secretly worried about how they’d pay for her dream wedding in Betterton. Neither of them had any savings, her dad was married to a witch, her mum to a pauper and Andy’s parents, while very pukka, didn’t have a bean, having lost it all in the Lloyd’s crash. 150 The failed crushed on Andy battered her confidence still more, although she still thanked God almost daily that by now she had learned enough never to have hinted at her feelings for him. 184 “I haven’t got any money. Or a place to live if I leave Olly’s.” She really hadn’t thought this through. Perhaps she should just go back to him. 472 You can’t marry someone just because he wants you. …. The problem caused by the hidden relationship between Natasha and Andy made Sophie lose her temper. Her hearth hurt, she used to believe Natasha as her best friend, she put her life on her, but then she knows that it doesn’t mean anything at all. Suddenly she rethinks again her perception about her friendship with Natasha. “But what?” Sophie drew herself up to her not very impressive full height. “I never want to see you again,” she spat at Andy. And then to Natasha: “And you. You are dead to me.” 470 Problems also make Natasha change her life. Having affair makes her become different person that she has changed from independent and tough person into