Sophie's Choice (novel)
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''Sophie's Choice'' is a 1979 novel by American author
William Styron William Clark Styron Jr. (June 11, 1925 – November 1, 2006) was an American novelist and essayist who won major literary awards for his work. Styron was best known for his novels, including: * '' Lie Down in Darkness'' (1951), his acclaimed fi ...
. The author's last novel, it concerns the relationships among three people sharing a boarding house in
Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
: Stingo, a young aspiring writer from the
South South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
, Jewish scientist Nathan Landau, and his lover Sophie, a Polish-Catholic survivor of the German
Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps, (officially) or (more commonly). The Nazi concentration camps are distinguished from other types of Nazi camps such as forced-labor camps, as well as concen ...
, whom Stingo befriends. ''Sophie's Choice'' won the US
National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...
in 1980. The novel was the basis of a 1982 film of the same name. It was controversial for the way in which it framed Styron's personal views regarding the
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
.


Plot summary

Stingo, a novelist who is recalling the summer when he began his first novel, has been fired from his low-level reader's job at the publisher
McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referenc ...
and has moved into a cheap boarding house in Brooklyn, where he hopes to devote some months to his writing. While he is working on his novel, he is drawn into the lives of the lovers Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, fellow boarders at the house, who are involved in an intense and difficult relationship. The beautiful Sophie is Polish and Catholic, and a survivor of the Holocaust and
Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...
concentration camps, while Nathan is a Jewish-American and, purportedly, a genius. Although Nathan claims to be a Harvard graduate and a cellular biologist with a pharmaceutical company, it is later revealed that this is a fabrication. Almost no one—including Sophie and Stingo—knows that Nathan has
paranoid schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. ...
, and is abusing stimulants. He sometimes behaves quite normally and generously, but there are times when he becomes frighteningly jealous, violent, abusive, and delusional. As the story progresses, Sophie tells Stingo of her past. She describes her violently anti-Semitic father, a law professor in
Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...
; her unwillingness to help him spread his ideas; her arrest by the
Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
; and particularly, her brief stint as a stenographer-typist in the home of
Rudolf Höss Rudolf Franz Ferdinand Höss (also Höß, Hoeß, or Hoess; 25 November 1901 – 16 April 1947) was a German SS officer during the Nazi era who, after the defeat of Nazi Germany, was convicted for war crimes. Höss was the longest-serving comm ...
, the commander of
Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...
, where she was interned. She specifically relates her attempts to seduce Höss in an effort to persuade him that her blond, blue-eyed, German-speaking son should be allowed to leave the camp and enter the
Lebensborn Lebensborn e.V. (literally: "Fount of Life") was an SS-initiated, state-supported, registered association in Nazi Germany with the stated goal of increasing the number of children born who met the Nazi standards of "racially pure" and "healt ...
program, in which he would be raised as a German child. She failed in this attempt and, ultimately, never learned of her son's fate. Only at the end of the book does the reader also learn what became of Sophie's daughter, Eva. Eventually, Nathan's delusions lead him to believe that Stingo is having an affair with Sophie and he threatens to kill them both. As Sophie and Stingo attempt to flee New York, Sophie reveals her deepest, darkest secret: on the night that she arrived at Auschwitz, a camp doctor made her choose which of her two children would die immediately by gassing and which would continue to live, albeit in the camp. Of her two children, Sophie chose to sacrifice her eight-year-old daughter, Eva, in a decision that has left her in mourning and filled with a guilt that Sophie cannot overcome. By now alcoholic and deeply depressed, Sophie is willing to self-destruct with Nathan, who has already tried to persuade her to commit suicide with him. Despite Stingo proposing marriage and a shared night that relieves Stingo of his virginity and fulfills many of his sexual fantasies, Sophie disappears, leaving only a note in which she says that she must return to Nathan. Upon arriving back in Brooklyn, Stingo is devastated to discover that Sophie and Nathan have committed suicide by ingesting
sodium cyanide Sodium cyanide is a poisonous compound with the formula Na C N. It is a white, water-soluble solid. Cyanide has a high affinity for metals, which leads to the high toxicity of this salt. Its main application, in gold mining, also exploits its hi ...
.


Inspiration and themes


Themes

Sylvie Mathé notes that Styron's "position" in the writing of this novel was made clear in his contemporary interviews and essays, in the latter case, in particular "Auschwitz", "Hell Reconsidered", and "A Wheel of Evil Come Full Circle", and quotes Alvin Rosenfeld's summary of Styron's position, where Rosenfeld states that:Rosenfeld, Alvin H. (1979) "The Holocaust According to William Styron," ''Midstream,'' Vol. 25, No. 10 (December), pp. 43-49. Rosenfeld, summarizing, states, "The drift of these revisionist views, all of which culminate in Sophie's Choice, is to take the Holocaust out of Jewish and Christian history and place it within a generalized history of evil." Mathé reinforces Rosenfeld's conclusion with a quote from Styron himself, who stated in his "Hell Reconsidered" essay that "the titanic and sinister forces at work in history and in modern life… threaten all men, not only Jews."Styron, William (1978) "Hell Reconsidered," In ''This Quiet Dust and Other Writings,''
982 Year 982 ( CMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Emperor Otto II (the Red) assembles an imperial expeditionary force at Tar ...
pp. 105-115, New York, NY, USA: Random House, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015.
She goes on to note that Styron's choices to represent these ideas, and to incorporate them so clearly into the narrative of his novel, resulted in polemic and controversy that continued, at least into the early years of the new millennium.


Plot inspiration

''Sophie's Choice'' is partly based on the author's time in Brooklyn, where he met a refugee from Poland. He visited Auschwitz while researching the novel. A central element of the novel's plot, the personally catastrophic choice referred to in the title, is said to have been inspired by a story of a Romani woman who was ordered by the Nazis to select which of her children was to be murdered, which Styron attributes to
Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...
's ''
Eichmann in Jerusalem ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...
''. However,
Ira Nadel Ira Bruce Nadel (born July 22, 1943) is an American-Canadian biographer, literary critic and James Joyce scholar, and a distinguished professor at the University of British Columbia. He has written books on the twentieth-century Modernists, espec ...
claims that the story is found in Arendt's ''
The Origins of Totalitarianism ''The Origins of Totalitarianism'', published in 1951, was Hannah Arendt's first major work, wherein she describes and analyzes Nazism and Stalinism as the major totalitarian political movements of the first half of the 20th century. History ...
.'' In that book, Arendt argues that those who ran the camps perpetrated an "attack on the moral person": Arendt herself cites
Albert Camus Albert Camus ( , ; ; 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French philosopher, author, dramatist, and journalist. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature at the age of 44, the second-youngest recipient in history. His work ...
' ''Twice a Year'' (1947) for the story (without providing a pinpoint reference). ''Twice a Year'' was a literary book which contained in its 1946/1947 publication the text of Camus' '' The Crisis of Man'', wherein four moral contradictions and dilemma are exampled, the Greek mother's exposure being one. Camus read this, his essay complete, at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
March 28, 1946.


Reception and controversies


Critical reception

In his review of the novel in the ''New York Times,'' John Gardner takes it as an example of
Southern Gothic Southern Gothic is an artistic subgenre of fiction, country music, film and television that are heavily influenced by Gothic elements and the American South. Common themes of Southern Gothic include storytelling of deeply flawed, disturbing or ...
and writes that it "is a splendidly written, thrilling book, a philosophical novel on the most important subject of the 20th century. If it is not, for me, a hands-down literary masterpiece, the reason is that, in transferring the form of the Southern Gothic to this vastly larger subject, Styron has been unable to get rid of or even noticeably tone down those qualities — some superficial, some deep — in the Southern Gothic that have always made Yankees squirm." ''Sophie's Choice'' won the US
National Book Award for Fiction The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987 the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but ...
in 1980,Weil, Robert (2009) "Sophie's Choice by William Styron, 1980" at ''National Book Association'' iction Blog, August 14 see , accessed 7 November 2015.This was the 1980 award for hardcover general Fiction, se
National Book awards website
The
National Book Awards The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...
there given for both hardcover and paperback in most categories from 1980 to 1983 and for multiple fiction categories, especially in 1980. See
against competition from ''
Just Above My Head ''Just Above My Head'' is James Baldwin's sixth and last novel, first published in 1979. He wrote it in his house in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. Plot introduction The novel tells the life story of a group of friends, from preaching in Harlem, ...
'' by James Baldwin, ''
The Executioner's Song ''The Executioner's Song'' (1979) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning true crime novel by Norman Mailer that depicts the events related to the execution of Gary Gilmore for murder by the state of Utah. The title of the book may be a play on "The Lord Hi ...
'' by Norman Mailer, ''
The Ghost Writer ''The Ghost Writer'' is a 1979 novel by the American author Philip Roth. It is the first of Roth's novels narrated by Nathan Zuckerman, one of the author's putative fictional alter egos, and constitutes the first book in his ''Zuckerman Bound'' ...
'' by Philip Roth, and ''Endless Love'' by Scott Spencer (where the
Pulitzer Pulitzer may refer to: *Joseph Pulitzer, a 20th century media magnate *Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award *Pulitzer (surname) * Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain *Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-pro ...
for fiction and the Nobel for literature for that year went, respectively, to Norman Mailer for ''The Executioner's Song'' and to Czeslaw Milosz for his body of poetry and other work).Anon. (2012) "National Book Award, 1980 – Hardcover," at ''National Book Association,'' se

accessed 7 November 2015.
''Sophie's Choice'' was banned by the South African government in November 1979 for being a sexually explicit work.


Controversies


At publication

''Sophie's Choice'' generated significant controversy at time of its publication. It was banned in South Africa, censored in the Soviet Union, and banned in Communist Poland for "its unflinching portrait of Polish anti-Semitism". Sylvie Mathé notes that ''Sophie's Choice'', which she refers to as a "highly controversial novel", appeared in press in the year following the broadcast of the
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an Television in the United States, American English-language Commercial broadcasting, commercial television network, broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Enterta ...
miniseries ''
Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
'' (1978), engendering a period in American culture where "a newly-raised consciousness of the Holocaust was becoming a forefront public issue." Mathé says: Here, the reference to a "limit event" (synonymous with "limit case" and "limit situation") is to a concept deriving at least from the early 1990s—Saul Friedländer, in introducing his ''Probing the Limits of Representation,'' quotes David Carroll, who refers to the Holocaust as "this limit case of knowledge and feeling"—a concept that can be understood to mean an event or related circumstance or practice that is "of such magnitude and profound violence" that it "rupture .. otherwise normative foundations of legitimacy and... civilising tendencies that underlie... political and moral community" (the oft-cited formulation of Simone Gigliotti). The controversy to which Mathé is specifically referring arises from a thematic analysis which—in apparent strong consensus (e.g., see Rosenfeld's 1979 work, "The Holocaust According to William Styron")—has Styron, through the novel, his interviews, and essays: * acknowledging Jewish suffering under the Nazis, but attempting to reorient views of the Holocaust away from its being solely aimed against the Jews, toward its encompassing Slavic and other Christians (hence the Sophie character's nationality and Catholic heritage); that is, it has him insisting on seeing Auschwitz in particular in more universal terms as "a murderous thrust against 'the entire human family.'" Styron further extends his argument, again with controversy: * proposing that this more general view of the barbarism of Auschwitz (and in particular the fact that Slavic Christians were caught up in its program of forced labour and extermination) obviates the need for Christian guilt and sets aside historical arguments for Christian anti-Semitism as a causative agent in the Holocaust, and * suggesting that the camp's role in forced labour justified its comparison (e.g., in the writings of Rubenstein) with the American institution of slavery, even allowing the latter to be viewed more favourably. Speaking of Styron's views as set forth in the novel and his nonfiction work, Rosenfeld refers to them as "revisionist views" that "culminate in ''Sophie's Choice''" with an aim to "take the Holocaust out of Jewish and Christian history and place it within a generalized history of evil", and it is this specific revisionist thrust that is the substance of the novel's initial and persisting ability to engender controversy.


Later

In 2002, Styron received the Auschwitz Jewish Center Foundation's Witness to Justice Award. ''Sophie's Choice'' has been banned in some high schools in the United States. For instance, the book was pulled from the
La Mirada High School La Mirada High School is a public high school in La Mirada, California. It is a member school of the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District which was built in 1960 as one of three high schools in the district. After the Norwalk/La Mirada Schoo ...
Library in California by the Norwalk-La Mirada High School District in 2002 because of a parent's complaint about its sexual content. However, a year after students protested and the
American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...
(ACLU) sent a letter to the school district requesting that the district reverse its actions, students were again given access to the book in the school library.


Adaptations


Film

The novel was made into a film of the same name in the United States, in 1982. Written and directed by
Alan J. Pakula Alan Jay Pakula (; April 7, 1928 – November 19, 1998) was an American film director, writer and producer. He was nominated for three Academy Awards: Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Picture for ''To Kill a Mockingbird (film), To Kill a Moc ...
, the film was nominated for
Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
s for its screenplay, musical score,
cinematography Cinematography (from ancient Greek κίνημα, ''kìnema'' "movement" and γράφειν, ''gràphein'' "to write") is the art of motion picture (and more recently, electronic video camera) photography. Cinematographers use a lens to focu ...
, and costume design, and
Meryl Streep Mary Louise Meryl Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Often described as "the best actress of her generation", Streep is particularly known for her versatility and accent adaptability. She has received numerous accolades throu ...
received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance of the title role.


Opera

The British composer
Nicholas Maw John Nicholas Maw (5 November 1935 – 19 May 2009) was a British composer. Among his works are the operas '' The Rising of the Moon'' (1970) and ''Sophie's Choice'' (2002). Biography Born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, Maw was the son of Clarence ...
wrote an opera based on the novel, which was premiered at the
Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Op ...
in London in 2002, and has also been performed in Washington, Berlin and Vienna.Ballantine, Christopher (2010)
"Sophie's Choice, Maw"
in ''
Opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librett ...
'', June 2010, p. 94. Website version accessed 25 April 2015; Gurewitsch, Matthew (2010)
"Maw: Sophie's Choice"
''
Opera News ''Opera News'' is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to engender the appreciation of opera and also support ...
'', August 2010, o
''beyondcriticism''
website, accessed 25 April 2015


Publication history and related works


Selected publication history

* Styron, William (1979) ''Sophie's Choice,'' New York, NY, USA: Random House, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015. * —. (1998)
979 Year 979 ( CMLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * March 24 – Second Battle of Pankaleia: An Ibero-Byzantine expeditionary ...
— (Modern Library 100 Best Novels Series), reprint, revised, New York, NY, USA: Modern Library, , se

accessed 7 November 2015. * —. (2004)
979 Year 979 ( CMLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * March 24 – Second Battle of Pankaleia: An Ibero-Byzantine expeditionary ...
— (Vintage Classics), reprint, London, ENG: Vintage, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015. * —. (2010)
979 Year 979 ( CMLXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * March 24 – Second Battle of Pankaleia: An Ibero-Byzantine expeditionary ...
— authorized e-book, New York, NY, USA: Open Road Media, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015.


Styron's related works

The following of Styron's works have been collected, per Sylvie Mathé, as relevant to the author's philosophical framework with regard to his constructing the history and characters within his novel. * Styron, William (1974) "Auschwitz," In ''This Quiet Dust and Other Writings,'' 1993
982 Year 982 ( CMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Emperor Otto II (the Red) assembles an imperial expeditionary force at Tar ...
pp. 336–339, New York, NY, USA: Vintage. * —. (1978) "Hell Reconsidered," In ''This Quiet Dust and Other Writings,'' 1993
982 Year 982 ( CMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Summer – Emperor Otto II (the Red) assembles an imperial expeditionary force at Tar ...
pp. 105–115, New York, NY, USA: Vintage. * —. (1997) "A Wheel of Evil Come Full Circle: The Making of Sophie's Choice," ''The Sewanee Review'' (Summer), Vol. 105, No. 3, pp. 395–400. * —. (1999) ''Afterword to Sophie's Choice,'' pp. 601–606, New York, NY, USA: Modern Library.


See also

* The Holocaust in popular culture * ''Le Monde'' 100 Books of the Century


Notes


References


Further reading

The following appear in ascending order, by original publication date, and within the same year, alphabetical by author: * Arendt, Hannah (1994)
963 Year 963 ( CMLXIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * March 15 – Emperor Romanos II dies at age 25, probably of poison admini ...
''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,'' New York, NY, USA: Penguin. * Styron, William (1967) ''The Confessions of Nat Turner,'' New York, NY, USA: Random House. * Styron, William (2001)
978 Year 978 ( CMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Battle of Pankaleia: Rebel forces under General Bardas Skleros are defeated ...
"Introduction," in ''The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future''
975 Year 975 ( CMLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Emperor John I raids Mesopotamia and invades Syria, using ...
(Rubenstein, Richard L., ed.), New York, NY, USA: Perennial. * Rubenstein, Richard L. (2001)
975 Year 975 ( CMLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Emperor John I raids Mesopotamia and invades Syria, using ...
''The Cunning of History: The Holocaust and the American Future,'' New York, NY, USA: Perennial. * Rosenfeld, Alvin H. (1979) "The Holocaust According to William Styron," ''Midstream,'' Vol. 25, No. 10 (December), pp. 43–49. * Morris, Robert K. & Irving Malin, eds. (1981) ''The Achievement of William Styron,'' Athens, GA, USA: University of Georgia Press. * Pearce, Richard (1981) "Sophie's Choices," pp. 284–297, in ''The Achievement of William Styron'' (Morris, Robert K. & Malin, Irving, eds.), Athens, GA, USA: University of Georgia Press. * Krzyzanowski, Jerzy R. (1983) "What's Wrong with Sophie's Choice?," ''Polish American Studies,'' No. 1 (Spring), p. 72, se

accessed 7 November 2015. * West, James L.W., III, ed. (1985) ''Conversations with William Styron,'' Jackson, MS, USA: University of Mississippi Press. * Sirlin, Rhoda A. (1990) ''William Styron's Sophie's Choice: Crime and Self-Punishment,'' Ann Arbor, MI. USA: University of Michigan Research Press. * Styron, William (1990) "Introduction," in ''William Styron's Sophie's Choice: Crime and Self-Punishment,'' Ann Arbor, MI. USA: University of Michigan Research Press. * Friedman, Saul S., ed. (1993) ''Holocaust Literature: A Handbook of Critical, Historical and Literary Writings,'' Westport, CT, USA: Greenwood Press. * White, Terry (1994) "Allegorical Evil, Existentialist Choice in O'Connor, Oates, and Styron," ''The Midwest Quarterly,'' Vol. 35, No. 3 (Spring), pp. 383–397. * Cologne-Brookes, Gavin (1995) ''The Novels of William Styron: From Harmony to History,'' Baton Rouge, LA, USA: Louisiana State University Press. * Bloom, Harold, ed. (2002) ''William Styron's Sophie's Choice'' (''Modern critical interpretations'' series), Philadelphia, PA, USA: Chelsea House, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015. * Law, Richard G. (2002) "The Reach of Fiction: Narrative Technique in Styron's Sophie's Choice," pp. 133–150, in ''William Styron's Sophie's Choice,'' (Bloom, Harold, ed.; ''Modern critical interpretations'' series), Philadelphia, PA, USA: Chelsea House, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015. * Telpaz, Gideon (2002) "An Interview with William Styron," pp. 231–241, in ''William Styron's Sophie's Choice,'' (Bloom, Harold, ed.; ''Modern critical interpretations'' series), Philadelphia, PA, USA: Chelsea House, , , se

accessed 7 November 2015. * Oster, Sharon (2003) "The 'Erotics of Auschwitz': Coming of Age in The Painted Bird and Sophie's Choice," pp. 90–124, in ''Witnessing the Disaster: Essays on Representation and the Holocaust,'' (Bernard-Donals, Michael & Glejzer, Richard, eds.), Madison, WI, USA: University of Wisconsin Press. * Beranek, Stephanie (2015)
003 003, O03, 0O3, OO3 may refer to: *003, fictional British 00 Agent *003, former emergency telephone number for the Norwegian ambulance service (until 1986) *1990 OO3, the asteroid 6131 Towen * OO3 gauge model railway *''O03 (O2)'' and other related ...
"Literature—William Styron: Sophie's Choice," at ''London School of Journalism,'' June 2003, se

accessed 7 November 2015.


External links

* [Student mini-essays based on stated sources, highlighting such matters as the contemporaneous controversy associated with the novel, including critiques of the author, serving therefore as a point to other sources germane to this article.] {{Authority control 1979 American novels American novels adapted into films Novels set in Brooklyn Fictional portrayals of schizophrenia National Book Award for Fiction winning works Novels about the aftermath of the Holocaust Novels about writers Novels by William Styron Random House books Fiction about suicide Novels adapted into operas Censored books American philosophical novels