Sophie's Choice by William Styron (Book Analysis) E-Book

Bright Summaries

• Herausgeber: BrightSummaries.com
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Serie: BrightSummaries.com
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 25

Beschreibung

Unlock the more straightforward side of Sophie’s Choice with this concise and insightful summary and analysis!

This engaging summary presents an analysis of Sophie’s Choice by William Styron, which follows the young and inexperienced Stingo as he meets and befriends Sophie, a Polish Catholic now living in Brooklyn, and her violent, schizophrenic lover Nathan. As Stingo grows closer to Sophie, he learns that she survived the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz, but was forced to make the terrible choice that gives the novel its title. Now, she is racked by guilt and seems unable to escape the shadow of her past, leading her to self-destruct. Sophie’s Choice is perhaps William Styron’s best-known work, and was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film starring Meryl Streep.

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This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you:
• A complete plot summary
• Character studies
• Key themes and symbols
• Questions for further reflection

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Leseprobe

WILLIAM STYRON

AMERICAN NOVELIST, ESSAYIST AND MEMOIRIST

Born in Newport News, Virginia, USA in 1925.Died in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA in 2006.Notable works:Lie Down in Darkness (1951), novelThe Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), novelDarkness Visible (1990), memoir

William Styron was born in Newport News, Virginia in 1925. He served in the US Marines before graduating from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. During the 1950s he was part of the community of American ex-pats in Paris that included the writers James Baldwin, Peter Mathieson and George Plimpton. The group founded the prestigious quarterly English literary magazine, The Paris Review. Styron’s first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, established him as one of America’s most promising young writers and won him the prestigious Rome Prize, which enabled him to study and write in Italy. The Confessions of Nat Turner, a fictionalised account of a historic slave rebellion in 1831, won a Pulitzer Prize, but met with controversy for its representation of black people. Styron was a passionate supporter of Civil Rights and an opponent of the war in Vietnam. In 1982 Sophie’s Choice was made into a feature film for which Meryl Streep, who played Sophie, won an Academy Award.

SOPHIE’S CHOICE

NOVEL

Genre: novelReference edition: Styron, W. (1980) Sophie’s Choice. London: Corgi.1stedition: 1979Themes: slavery, the Holocaust, World War II, domestic violence, guilt, mental health, suicide, sexual frustration

Sophie’s Choice is a troubling novel that revolves around the character of Sophie, a Polish Catholic, who has a terrible choice to make when she is taken to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. She survives the war but the mental trauma she suffers afterwards makes her ripe for an abusive relationship with Nathan, a paranoid schizophrenic. The two form an unhealthy co-dependency that leads to their double suicide. The narrator, Stingo, tells Sophie’s story within the framework of his own. Stingo is an aspiring writer who is drawn, against his better judgment, into friendship with the couple. He falls in love with Sophie, who confides in him, gradually opening up and revealing the terrible story of what happened to her at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

SUMMARY

Stingo is 22 years old and an aspiring writer, but since going to work as a junior editor at the publishers McGraw-Hill, he has not been able to write creatively. His job is to read mainly tattered and inferior manuscripts. He rejects them all, including one which later becomes a huge success: Kon-tiki. To his relief he is dismissed from his post, but realises he will have to move from his tiny but expensive room in Manhattan to Brooklyn, where property is cheaper. He is helped by a legacy of 484 dollars from the sale of a slave, Artiste, owned by his great-grandfather at the time of the American Civil War (1861-1865).