Life, it turns out, is an entirely personal experience. The Shoe-Horn Sonata shows us that although two women experience the same situation their views of what they have experienced are often completely different, as are their views of the best way in which to recover from it afterwards.
Bridie, for example, is resolute in her determination to bring no joy to the Japanese guards, even if it means depriving herself of a little bit of joy in an otherwise completely joyless existence. She would rather die than offer sexual favors to a Japanese guard. For her, it would be the height of unpatriotism to bring any pleasure to a people who were killing Australian citizens. She does not view herself as particularly patriotic, but she has a clearly defined sense of right and wrong. Bridie believes the women who do go with the guards are whores at best and traitors at worst. To her, a life that is saved by collaborating with a Japanese guard is not a life that is worth living.
Sheila, on the other hand, actually considers herself to be incredibly patriotic, which is probably why she gives a huge benefit of the doubt to the British women who had sex with the guards that she is not willing to give to the Australians. Sheila views sex with the guards as a means to an end if the situation is dire enough; if a woman has children with her that she is trying to protect; if she has children at home that she is trying to stay alive for and get back to. These are cases in which sex with a Japanese guard is an act of bravery not an act of treachery. Both women are experiencing the same torture and horrible conditions yet both women see part of their situation in a completely different way.
They also find that there are two completely different ways to deal with the experience once they have moved on from it. Sheila wants to cut off all ties with Bridie. She associates Bridie with the camp and because they have never existed as friends anywhere other than the prison, she finds that seeing Bridie throws up all sorts of memories that she wants very much to repress. Bridie, on the other hand, feels that after what they have survived together they are irrevocably bound together because nobody else can truly understand what they have been through. In many ways their belief about their friendship is the same; both women associate the other with their time at the prison, but they look at this in very different ways. Sheila associates Bridie with their suffering and torture whereas Bridie looks at Sheila and is proud of their resilience and survival.
