Attempt a character sketch of Sophie as a girl who lives in her dreams.

Sophie is typical teenager who indulges in fantasy and daydreaming most of the time. Her dreams are to open a boutique or to become a fashion designer. She wants to be an actress too. She always plans to do something which does not belong to the people of middle class. Her family conditions are not good and so her dreams seem to be unrealistic and impractical. Her friend, Jansie, unlike Sophie lived in a world of reality and knows that both of them are marked for a biscuit factory. Opening a boutique or becoming a fashion designer are next to impossible. Sophie has neither the means nor money to raise herself to the standard of becoming an actress or a fashiondesigner. She has many limitations which she is not aware of. She also lacks the skills to achieve those dreams. She can be called an escapist from the real world who is caught in the web of her own creations. She is not ready to accept what life has to offer her. She fails to differentiate between reality and fantasy and goes to meet Danny Casey. She also fantasies about Danny Casey, which are never to be fulfilled. In a nutshell, we can say that Sophie is an escapist and a day dreamer. She is an adolescent who ignores the ground realities of life.

OR

The character of Sophie appears to be a girl who lives in her dreams. She belongs to a weak socio-economic background and to escape from the boring, working class existence, she often fantasises of a grand and promising future. She wants her future to have less hardships and money constraints. Given her adolescent age, she is fickle minded. When she grows up, she aspires to be a boutique owner or a manager, or an actress, who is also a fashion designer, who also runs a boutique. However, she does not take concrete steps to convert any of her aspiration into reality. Of all her family members, Sophie admires her brother Geoff the most. She idealises him and at the same time is jealous of him, because he speaks less to Sophie, he seems full of mystery. She wants to be a part of her brother’s mysterious world because it symbolises freedom and adventure, both of which fascinate her immensely. She thinks that she is tailor made for such a world. Also, a part of her dream world is Danny Casey, an Irish footballer. Sophie has watched him play only once and develops a crush on him. Her hero-worship towards Danny Casey is so intense that she fantasises meeting him. She romanticises it and later feels disappointed when her fantasy does not come true. Therefore, it is suffice to say that Sophie is one incurable dreamer who lives in denial. Throughout the story, she has never once thought practically or come out of her dream world.