The Impression of Sophie’s Choice
Many people may have seen the renowned film Sophie’s Choice, which not only helped the actress of great skills—Meryl Streep win the Oscar Award for the best actress, but also became a very hit in the world. But after reading the original novel, I was deeply impressed by the experience of Sophie as well as the questions which had been put forward in this book, and it indeed has a great impact on my thoughts and the inner feelings of my heart.
This acclaimed work was written by William Styron, the celebrated novelist in the United States of the current generation, who was born in Newport News (Virginia) in 1925 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1968. And in 1978，it was published by the famous Random House and regarded the landmark of the Western novel history, bringing the National Book Award for Styron as well. Because of this great product which was put on the list of the “Top 200 Classical English Novels in the 20th Century”, 24 years later, Auschwitz Jewish Centre Foundation Justice gave Styron the “Justice Witnessing” prize, making him admit that it would be the strong evidence to support his ideal success of being a novelist.
This wonderful book tells a story about a young aspiring writer from southern America, who became friends with the Jewish Nathan Landau and his beautiful lover Sophie Zawistowski, a Polish (but non-Jewish) survivor of the Nazi concentration camps. Stingo, the “narrator” in the book, was an ambitious young man who came to New York with a literature heart which was desired to succeed. There in the Brooklyn he met the lovers —Nathan and Sophie, getting deeply involved in their intricate love entanglement. Sophie, a poor woman who had suffered a lot before she was free from the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, served as a receptionist for a doctor and once was saved by Nathan, a knowledgeable and energetic Jewish, who professed himself to be a biologist. And, because of his handsome appearance, considerate personality as well as her charming mystic beauty, they were inevitably attracted by each other, and fell in love; however, the truth was sometimes the coldest, the cruelest and the last thing we want to know. Nathan was not simply a pleasant lover but also a dangerous psycho, an unsteady drugger who seemed to go to pieces at any time. His seizures often occurred suddenly without any warning, leading not only physical pains but also mental suffering to Sophie and hurting her so bad, while Sophie hid her dark memories in heart and bore the moral guilt and tolerated the savage act from the man to whom she was deeply attached. Stingo had affection for Sophie and turned to be her loyal listener, helping share and release her mental burden in some way, but owing to his respect for Nathan, he had to hold his ardent feelings back, just watching their happiness and cheering with them. Finally, Sophie made another fatal choice—refusing Stingo’s proposal and committing suicide for love together with Nathan.
The tragedy doesn’t use the traditional chronological order to introduce the encounter of Sophie in the war time and the experience outside the concentration camp; instead, it adopts the method of psychoanalysis and provides many suspense, mixing her recollection with the inner emotion of Stingo, who had a rough passage at that time and gradually developed a close friendship with Sophie and Nathan, and solves the mysteries step by step. The “choice” in the title, means the difficult choices that she was forced to made during the gloomy time which she didn’t mean to talk anymore, and the pang they have caused for Sophie rankles from time to time. And after being popular, the difficult decision in the book that shapes the character Sophie is sometimes used as an idiom. A "Sophie's Choice" is a tragic choice between two unbearable options.
The plots that impressed me most are the Sophie’s miserable experience and the desperate love between her and Nathan. Sophie used to live in a blissful family in Krakow, but unfortunately it was completely destroyed by World War Ⅱ; she might be able to look forward to a bright future and peaceful life, but the hell of Auschwitz was waiting for her; even after her narrow escape from the “death factory”, still she had to be scourged by her conscience. Sophie lived quietly with her innocent children and parents until Nazis took away her father and husband’s lives while her mother died from tuberculosis. She was caught by Nazi army because of buying a ham without authorization, though she tried in vain to explain that she wanted to recover her mother’s health. Later she was taken to the notorious Auschwitz Concentration Camp by train. There at the platform she was compelled to make a ruthless choice—she must send her son or daughter to the cremator. Forlornly she decided to give up her loving daughter, feeling grieved to the extreme. Her son was put into the children camp and she was selected to work as a stenographer thanks to her fluent German and her beautiful face as well. Later she was asked to help in Hoess’s house, a high-ranking Nazi officer. In order to save her son, Sophie even intended to seduce Hoess just for his promise that he would guarantee Ian, her poor son, to leave the horrible hell safely and secretly. Sadly, the boy eventually could not escape from death no matter what methods Sophie had tried. This also became an indelible scar in her soul, even a source of worm of conscience when facing the Nathan in a blaze of fury. She should have the right to declare that she was an innocent, but actually, she couldn’t, because she could not deny the fact that her father was a fanatical Nazi intellectual who had expressed his brutal anti-Semitic opinion while living. Besides, though kind she was, she did have assisted her father to print his works and hide it in her sole so as to beg for leniency from Hoess, and that is why Sophie felt herself different from other survivors—she was not a Jew but a Polish being persecuted; her respected father was a victim but also a criminal in history; and his father’s article reminded her of the “crime” she made. The complicated identity pushed her into the abyss, roaming between “innocent” and “sinner”.
But when comes to her later brand new and short life, there is no doubt that it’s Nathan who helped Sophie gain her renascence of body and morale. She again tasted what love is and appreciated the passion of life, devoting herself to Nathan just like a moth fly into the flame without any hesitation. Nathan was filled with great enthusiasm toward life, and his infectious ardor melted Sophie’s torturous memories, leading her into their paradise. He took her to the concerts, traveled to the beach, went out for picnic and enjoyed the good wine and delicacies; he gave her dear jewels and they even bought some old but expensive clothes to dress up just for fun. However, his sensitivity and madness reflected how fragile their love was, which was accompanied by hair-trigger danger. In the stage of attack, Nathan’s extreme behavior not only harmed their love but also cause injuries to Sophie’s feelings. He got into the research of Nazi offense, and sometimes with the effect of his illness, he may be mad at everything around him, yelling, shouting, insulting Sophie. He was also so sensitive about his “Polish sweet” getting close to other female creature, convicting her of being a trollop. But Sophie bore the bitterness alone until she met Stingo. Owing to her “unpleasant behavior” in the concentration camp made her feel sorry for the Jews subconsciously, and along with her deep love to Nathan, she never thought about leaving this crazy and unstable volcano. That may explain the reason why she made up her mind to stay with the cranky and depressed Nathan instead of faithful admirer Stingo. A significant choice.
This book emphasis the “choice”, which inflects many choices Sophie had to make during her short life, and also reminds me of the well-known question which was put forward in Shakespeare Hamlet —“To be or not to be, it’s a question.” Sophie had faced several essential choices in her life referring to “live” or “death”. For instance, first in Warsaw, in order to protect her family, she decided to refuse to help the resisted organization against the German army; at the Auschwitz, being forced by the drunk doctor, she tearfully choose to let her daughter go into the cremator; at the end of the story, she determined to go back to follow Nathan, giving up the promising life with Stingo. In her daily life, she also confronted miscellaneous choices, such as her marriage, her plan to steal the record, surrendering to the Nazi officer and so on. We all have stood or will stand at the crossroad in our journey, facing diversified choices, small or big, sad or happy, true or false, unavoidably. But for Sophie, no matter what she chose, what she decided to do, all led to the only result. Maybe the choices she made accounted for her tragic life, or it was the fate that marked out for her hopeless decision.
The author quoted Stingo in the novel to speak of his thought—why we have totally different destinies: someone was painfully making choice which was between life and death, while some were in the pursuit of pleasure. Besides, In the Tartarus, the God seemed that he could do nothing to help. The religion which has been praised highly for its significant role as the spiritual mentor couldn’t save the poor people in the concentration camp, getting more and more wretches, especially the loyal believers, into a crisis of belief as well as a downhearted will. That was why Sophie bitterly and disappointedly asked, “Does God really exist?” “Have God already left us?”
Meanwhile, through the whole story I learn the history about the racial problem between south and north in the United States, and I can also know the Jews’ special living customs and their social status in Poland and the Polish attitudes towards them. And, it reflected the historical background by describing the cityscape in the America as well as Europe in the postwar years through people’ life style.
After appreciating this heavy story, I couldn’t help crying for Sophie’s multiple-choice tests and all the things that she had been through. I strongly harbor the idea that we all could hardly find a way to survive in that particular case. That was not about the religious beliefs, values, or ethnicity, but human nature. Only under that circumstance could we thoroughly realize how keen the fear was and how helpless the promises or the so-called hopes were, and that’s why we ought to treasure our precious lives. Sophie was just a representative of the victims during the World War Ⅱ who had suffered a lot physically and mentally, but not the only one; her grievous catastrophe was an epitome of the unfortunateness during that period full of blood and tear. We may be another Sophie under that situation, so we don’t have the right to criticize her choices or her decision, for all she did was due to her little desire— her family could live peacefully, or her children would be safe from the fish-blooded killers, though it was only a dream. What’s more, she didn’t follow Stingo to go to his southern farm; instead, she made up her mind to die with Nathan, which indicates her kind heart and devoted love to Nathan. Though Nathan had caused so many pains to her, undeniably, he also had created countless joys and laughters for her because it was he who reshaped her life entirely and guided her to a paradise, letting her taste the sweet of love, so she could not abandon him even he was gradually under no control. He might be the one in her heart, truly alive in her mind. She had experienced the impassive life with her husband and plain feelings towards her ex-lover, so she undoubtedly cherished him about everything. When he got a mental breakdown, she unhesitatingly ran back to him because once the bubble of love broke, they would not be able to stop the happiness from collapsing. It’s weepy but outsiders couldn’t do anything.
From this book I indeed see carefully how life is invaluable.
It’s definitely a good book on account of the reason it tells us that we though may not go into the dilemma facing the difficult choices like Sophie, the thoughts and ideas about humanity and life must need focusing, for they are the cores that make we human meaningfully alive.