"How pleasant to read uncompromised by purpose."
Sophie's characteristic problem throughout the novel is her lack of purpose. She adheres to a pretty strict regimen of apathy. Unsurprisingly this is an aspect of her personality which she admires about herself and one which she relishes for its own sake.
"It was a dead hole, smelling of synthetic leather and disinfectant, both of which odors seemed to emanate from the torn scratched material of the seats that lined the three walls. It smelled of tobacco ashes whcih had flooded the two standing metal ashtrays."
When Sophie finally agrees to seek medical treatment for her infected bite, she faces a rather daunting doctor's office waiting room. To her, this moment symbolized the epitome of defeat. Until this moment she had successfully been ignoring the festering of her problems, but now she must own up to her previous unconcern with health, both physical and mental. This critical moment is complimented by the disgusting waiting room -- one final challenge to test her resolve to make improvements.
"Deliberately, she visualized the living room of their Flynders farmhouse, then, blurring that bright familiar place, another room began to form: the skimpy parlor of her childhood, her father and a friend speaking late into the evening while she lay drowsily on the Victorian sofa, listening to the drone of the men's voices, feeling on her cheek the sting of a horsehair which had worked its way up through the black upholstery, safe and dreaming of the brilliance of her own true grown-up life to come."
Sophie is caught between nostalgia and apathy. Instead of setting an ideal for her future and working toward realizing it, she has decided that this moment in the past was the pinnacle of her life and that intention for the future is meaningless in light of these lost memories. Sophie adored her childhood, the simplicity of rural life. Contrasting this sweet memory with her bustling city life, she draws upon her nostalgia in order to rectify the two di-synchronous pictures. It's as if she were trying to transform her present situation into her past by mere thought.
"She didn't know how to violate that mutual smile of theirs. It was miasmic. It stayed on her face while she undressed. It would not go away, and she bore it home with her, a disfiguring rictus."
Sophie has engaged in an affair, one less of passion and more of intrigue. Bored by her doldrum existence at home in their Brooklyn apartment, she looks for excitement and feeling elsewhere. Since her marriage has already become a burden, she doesn't think twice about falling in love with this stranger.
