Sofia's Perfect Life: A Teenager's Dream Come True - Essay Sample

Introduction

Sofia's life could not get any better. As the most popular senior student in Merchant high school who had been declared as "most likely to succeed" in life, she was well-liked by everyone in her school, and she enjoyed all the attention she got from her peers. She was loved by everyone at home, especially her father. At the tender age of 16, Sofia could get her parents to buy her whatever she wanted even though they were not from a wealthy background. This is because she could never take "no" for an answer, and she would continuously ask for whatever she wanted until her parents eventually gave up and gave her whatever she needed. Her habits extended even to her friends, and even though everyone smiled at her face, she could never tell whether they were happy with her.

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One day, she met with an old lady who was believed to have magical abilities and could gift people with whatever they wanted if they impressed her enough. With her ability to convince people, Sofia tried to reason with the lady to give her magical powers that would make her perfect just like everyone thought she was. The lady, to Sofia's disappointment, refused and told her that she was not impressed by Sofia's attitude. However, Sofia did not give up; she continued to badger the old lady until the lady became upset with her "I, the lady of the forest, grant you, Sofia, the ability that will make you realize who you are. May this power be what you need." She tapped Sofia on the head. Sofia expected to feel magnificent or at least reborn. However, she felt the same and decided to walk home, disappointed that the lady of the forest did not grant her request. She went back, recounted her story to her friends, ate dinner with her parents, and went to sleep at quarter to ten since she had cheerleading practice before class.

The following morning, everything was going right until she heard her mother complain about how she complains too much. When she tried asking her mother, she looked horror-struck before denying any claims of having said anything. Sofia was about to resume eating her breakfast when her mother started complaining again, and to her surprise, her mother was busy chewing her food. She decided to ignore it and go to a school where things were normal. At the school entrance, she met with her best friend, Joan who was eagerly waiting for her. "She thinks she is so popular; she does not know that we are her friends just because she has a car and she is rich. She is not very pretty." Those were the first words that she heard from Joan. "I am not rich, and I thought you were my best friend!" Sofia was outraged. "How can you read my mind? I did not say anything!" Joan tried to beg, but Sofia would not hear it. All through the day, all she heard were the mean thoughts that her friends had to say about her. Some thought she was proud; others thought she was only pretending to be nice when, in reality, she was mean, and some did not like her at all. The high thoughts she had about herself were slowly fading, and by evening, she was despaired and heartbroken. Through luck or ill-fate, she met the lady of the forest and asked her why she was granted a horrible magical power. The lady told her that she got what she wanted and was cursed to live with the ability to read minds until she learned her lesson.

Days passed, and Sofia grew desperate in her attempts to stop reading people's minds. She did not understand why she could not make the voices stop. She tried to understand the lesson that she was supposed to learn, but to her, she was a good person who was supposed to get the best out of life. However, everyone seemed to be against her, and she was only thinking ill thoughts about her. Then one night, she decided to put herself out of her misery. She was going to use her brains to get the answers she thought she deserved. She called her parents who were still unaware of her mind-reading abilities. "mother, am I a selfish person?" she casually asked her mother, who was shocked at first then read her mother's mind to get the real answer. She did not expect the responses she got, but when she probed her mother, she noticed her tight smile before her mother gave in to her demands. This character was similar to her father and her friends. That's when she learned that she had a problem. What she would do with it, she did not honestly know.

Analysis

The story talks about the problems of living in a bubble. Sofia is a girl who is stuck in her world, where everyone treats her like the perfect person she portrays herself. According to her, she is perfect and does not have any flaws, which means that she deserves to get everything she requests for her parents. She does not consider that her parents may not be capable of providing for her every desire, but she continues to nag and badger them to her whatever she wants. The story is a magic realism as it challenges the modern notion of the truth through making the idea of reading minds a reality in such a way that even though Sofia goes through the typical routine of a sixteen-year-old girl who is still in high school and at the height of adolescence.

The characters in this story are set up to portray the natural truth that exists in the modern world. Sofia is a typical sixteen-year-old girl who is obsessed with making herself perfect as well as staying at the top of the hierarchy through maintaining her social status as the most liked girl in school. Her friends at school, act like the typical students who befriend her for her social and financial status even though Sofia's family are not wealthy. Sofia's parents, like any other parents, try to make her happy, even though they have to break their backs in the process, this notion explains why Sofia, at sixteen years old, has a car.

The situation is set up in such a way that Sofia has to learn that her behavior is not morally right. Therefore, to help her learn this lesson, the lady of the forest, who is a mythical person, is introduced to the scene. The lady grants Sofia magical power even though it does not make her perfect as she wished, it helps her to realize her real characters and the flaws in her ideal behavior.