Analysis Of The Theme Of Sophie's Choice

William Styron (1925-2006) is generally recognized as one of the most accomplished and creative of all post- World War II American novelists. Sophie's Choice is a realistic novel written by William Styron. He has taken on the most dangerous and vast subject among his works: Auschwitz-the Holocaust. Styron does not follow the traditional western way of writing history from the top down or in grand narrative strokes. He is instead more concerned with the submerged or marginal histories of the unimportant persons, such as Sophie, a Polish Catholic Gentile, and the destructive impact of her past upon her later life.This novel is largely narrated in the first person by a man called Stingo, includes Sophie's memories of her childhood, wartime Warsaw, and her imprisonment at Auschwitz. Through describing Sophie's life in the Nazi camps and afterwards in New York getting together with her lover Nathan, Styron tells a sad but inspiring story which demonstrates the evil nature of human being. There are two historical backgrounds in this novel. One is World War II, and the other is slavery in the South. This thesis employs these two historical events to explore the essence of human sin from two perspectives of the collective and individual. Religious theory is also used to discuss whether believing in God still holds its meaning after people have experienced the horrible conditions, like wars and slavery. Another innovative point in this thesis is taking psychological theory—phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness to explain self-accusation and self-abasement which can effectively analyze Sophie's mental state when she disposes of her religious belief and finally chooses death.The thesis consists of five chapters. It starts with a general introduction of the authorship, plot summary, writing style, major themes as well as literature review and the object and scope of the study. Also, the first chapter introduces the innovative points of this thesis.In the second chapter of this thesis, World War II and Southern Slavery in America are introduced in detail. These two historical events can demonstrate the nature of human sin. As a modern Southerner with morality, Stingo, the author personified, keeps holding a sense of sin for southern slavery years before. A split personality is a psychological phenomenon when a person can be two or more different personalities at one time. The thesis uses this psychological theory to analyse the psychological process of human sin and explores the evil in humanity, taking Hoss and Fritz Jemand working in the camps as examples.In the third chapter, the thesis focuses on the protagonist of this novel-Sophie. The war leaves Sophie a big shadow, making her seriously self-accused and abased. In this part, the psychological theory—phenomenal consciousness and access consciousness, is used to analyse the characters' psychology. Ned Block proposed to divide consciousness into these two parts in 1995. P-consciousness mainly refers to the experience of sensations and feelings, etc. A-consciousness mainly refers to thoughts which include reasoning, the control of the verbal and behaviour as well as the reportability. According to the psychological theory, self-accusation and self-abasement are not the reflection of psychopathy, but that of progressive introspect and cognitive span, they belong to A-consciousness. Having suffered too much from the concentration camp, Sophie gives up her religious faith. Therefore, religion is also a topic that can not be separated from Sophie. Whether this decision is right, what explanation the Bible provides for redemption, and why Sophie finally suicides, will all be discussed in this part.In the fourth chapter, it is necessary to explore the main characters of this novel—Sophie and Stingo from the aspect of their personal sense of sin. What has made them feel guilty, what have they done. This part makes deeper study on the individual sense of sin. Both Sophie and Stingo are complex characters. Styron says that he can not make Sophie just a victim, otherwise it will not be interesting. From Stingo, we can see that sometimes the sense of sin does not come from the mistakes one has made. This person may be innocent, but because of the guilty environment he stands in, he may charge himself for being a member who has committed the sin.The final chapter makes a conclusion about the whole thesis. It concludes the psychological and religious theories which are taken to explain and analyze the characters.