Liza’s Concept of Love

57 and its content is showed in the way she disagrees with what rich people always do with the animals. She does not like the way they have fun by killing animals in the hunting session. … Next day Jonathan started shooting and Victoria did too. There was a pair of partridges used to strut about. I’d got fond of them , red legs and a beautiful pattern on their backs. She shot them both. I wish I’d had a gun, I’d have shot her…’ p. 172 Since she is used to living in a poor situation, she knows how to survive in the worst condition. When the hurricane comes and destroys many things in Shrove, she can handle it by herself. Liza is not scared although no one who helps them. Her hard life at Shrove also teaches her to be strong in a way that she can survive over any minimum facilities she has had. After moving with Sean, things are not even better. Sean, who is poor, cannot afford any luxurious things for them. However, she never complains because she is used to such a situation where anything is less at the gate-house. Though life is still not easy for her, she can survive. When they find out that the place to park Sean’s caravan is only a piece of waste ground which has no water supply near, Liza does not loose her ways. She goes far up the lane to find a stream which tumbles over rocks. Liza who never joins any scouts before knows how to survive in such situation. Her hard life at Shrove teaches her to do so, because ‘She was full of plans. Of much the world she might be ignorant, but she know how to manage’ p. 131. Petri writes 1981:6 that we learn through observing, and observation leads to assimilation. From the description, we can see that Liza has a good appreciation of the nature because her mother always teaches her to love the 58 nature. Her life at Shrove with lack of facilities also teaches her to be able to make use of the nature wisely. Hence, Liza is able to survive even in the worst condition of environment.

7. Liza’s View about a Woman

Liza grows with her mother who becomes her mother as well as her father. Eve is a strong woman who is able to live alone without the help of a man. This is what Liza learns from. Since Liza does not have other people to be compared with, she only knows that every woman shall be strong just like her mother and her. She does not have any understanding about the social myths about a man who should be strong and a woman who should act gently. Liza has the positive view about a woman that women and men are equal. That is why she finds it odd when Sean forbids her to swear since he does it too. ‘I’m hungry’, she said. ‘I’m so bloody hungry.’ ‘Don’t swear Liza.’ ‘You do. Who d’you think I got it from?’ ‘It’s different for me. You’re a woman. I don’t like to hear a woman swear.’ p.25 She also gets confused when Sean judges negatively to her mother after Liza tell him that Eve does know who Liza’s father is. She gets irritated because Sean judges Eve’s deed negatively, especially because she is a woman. It was as if Sean hadn’t heard a word since she said that, about not knowing who her father was. ‘She must have had one bloke after another,’ he said, ‘one one night and another the next or even the same day. That’s really disgusting. That’s terrible what d’you-call-it to bring a child up in, especially a girl?’ ‘Environment,’ she said. ‘Why especially a girl?’ ‘Oh, come on, Liza, it’s obvious.’ ‘Not to me,’ she said p.138