Unbalanced Personality, Tragic Life

William Styron is an outstanding and creative American southern novelist. Since his masterpiece Sophie’s Choice is punished, it attracts more and more attention. It receives Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award and there are many books and papers about this novel. Critics mainly study this novel from such perspectives as narrative strategies, trauma theory and the archetypal criticism. By analyzing Sophie’s id,the ego and the superego as well as the interaction and contradiction among them, this thesis tries to expose the application of the defense mechanisms in order to analyze Sophie’s complex mind and to reveal reasons that lead to Sophie’s tragedy.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One briefly introduces William Styron and his Sophie’s Choice, and Freud’s personality structure theory. Chapter Two makes an analysis of Sophie’s id. This chapter focuses on Sophie’s life instinct, such as instinct for survival and avoidance of danger. It also discusses her sexual instinct, such as instinct for love and instinct for sex, pointing that no matter where Sophie is, she would think of many ways to satisfy all kinds of her desire. Chapter Three explores the Sophie’s underdeveloped superego and researches on the factors influencing the Sophie’s superego, such as religion conviction, Sophie’s anti-Semitic family and abnormal society. Chapter Four illustrates the failure of Sophie’s ego in coordinating the relationship among the id,the superego and external world, and the usage of Sophie’s ego defense mechanisms. In order to cope with her anxiety, she uses repression, denial and displacement to ease her anxiety. By digging into Sophie’s personality, this thesis attempts to reveal the conflicts between instinctual impulses and restraints of morality, and to find out the roots of Sophie’s tragedy. The thesis draws a conclusion that Sophie’s personality imbalance, including strong id, weak ego, and underdeveloped superego, is the inner cause of her tragedy. Sophie’s tragedy reveals that in a sense, strong faith, perfect family and social education play vital roles in keeping the balanced personality. Only under the effect of these positive factors keeping a balance among three levels and establishing a healthy personality, can individual causes of similar tragedy be reduced effectively.