1. Mr. Shaw
AP English Literature
June 3rd 2015
Sophie’s Choice:
Understanding the Relationship between Slavery and Nazism through a Relatable Voice.
In Sophie’s Choice, William Styron allows for his audience to perceive specific
aspects of American History, such as the Second World War and slavery, through new
and unique ways. Written in a loosely autobiographical format Sophie’s Choice is
narrated by Stingo, a voice whose anxieties and personal problems are relatable to all
(Crane). The novel provides historical insight of the United States through a lens in
which the reader is more comfortable with, Nazism.
As young man whose aspirations of becoming a successful published author grow
dimmer and dimmer by the day, Stingo lived his young adult life afraid of where he was
headed. He went through life with an immense fear of failing the women whom he had
come to know and love. Stingo’s inability to save Maria from suicide, and the
inadequacy he feels for his mother in her final days, prevents him from feeling able to
protect Sophie from the pain that she feels( Ross 129). And although he grows to love
Sophie, he will never believe that he is enough to make her happy. As a continuous
internal battle is being fought constantly within him, Stingo struggles with the belief that
he will never be able to save a woman that he loves. The more he gets accompanied with
Sophie, the more he beings to learn about the struggles that she has faced throughout the
beginning of her life. As the novel continues, and Stingo realizes that she and her
boyfriend both need help in ways in which he is incapable, he returns to his original

2. anxiety of failure to those he loves (Ross 130). The situation in which Stingo finds
himself in, not being enough help for the people in which he loves, is a topic in which
many people reading Sophie’s Choice may be able to relate to. The ability for the
audience to feel comfortable with the voice of the novel increases the likelihood for the
reader to comprehend other details that arise in the novel later on.
The Nazi reign over Germany and Adolf Hitler are both famous for their cruelty
and disregard for people's human rights. Responsible for the deaths of millions upon
millions, both the Nazi’s and Hitler possessed fundamentals that were based off of the
era of slavery within the United States until Emancipation Proclamation. Slavery in
America was built upon the foundation that blacks were the property of their owners, and
were made to work and earn money for their owners, while Nazi Germany did the same
to the millions of jews, gypsies, homosexuals and cripples when concentration camps
were created. Yet it is easier to see the atrocities of one man and one nation, than to self
reflect that the nation in which we live in possessed the inspiration for such pain and
death. This is why Styron writes Sophie’s Choice, a description of the pain and tragedy
behind the setting of a concentration camp, was told through the eyes of a young man
who had ties to slavery (Law 46). In order for the audience to comprehend and
acknowledge the flaws of our nation, we had to find them for ourselves through the
similarities between Stingo’s family lineage and connection to slavery, as well a Sophie’s
ties to the reign of Nazism.
In the novel, Stingo is a young man from Virginia living in Brooklyn and his father
stills lives down south in the house that Stingo grew up in. His extended family is
sprinkled across the United States. After receiving money from his father that would

3. help Stingo get back on his feet after being fired from his job, he learns that the origins of
the money was from the selling of a slave by his great grandfather before the act was
proclaimed illegal. “Ironically, [Stingo] who will in time publish books about Nazism
and racism, is financed by money that he inherits from the selling of a slave,” which
forces the question is Stingo therefore enabling the culture in which he writes about in his
later years (Law 47). Throughout the novel there is an intertwining between the personal
experiences of the narrator and Sophie, who was contained in a Nazi concentration camp
during the Second World War, yet twice during the novel the audience experiences a
break in Sophie’s story when Stingo leaves his home where he lives a floor beneath
Sophie and her boyfriend, Nathan. Both times he parts with Brooklyn to escape the
traumatic retelling of Sophie’s earlier years. Styron takes the time within his novel to
provide a detailed description of the proximity between Stingo and Sophie because it
translates to the physical closeness of their stories. Living with one floor separating them,
the two are able to intertwine their stories and pasts, and show how truly connected they
are. Without this, the correlation between slavery and Nazism could never be properly
noticed and appreciated by the reader.
Sophie’s experiences with the concentration camp, and having to choose one child
to live and one child to die, is the pivotal point in the novel when the audience learns
from where her anxieties and stressors began. In many ways, when learning of the
trauma that the woman he loves had to endure, there is guilt within Stingo. In a manner
similar to a Domino Effect, slavery inspires Hitler and the Nazis. and Stingo’s
enablement of slavery by spending the money earned by the sale of a slave causes a sense
of regretful responsibility for Sophie’s suffering. Stingo blaming himself and feeling

4. culpable for his correlation to slavery is emblematic of the sentiments in which the
nations possesses for having had slavery. Slavery in the United States was an incredibly
vital part of society only a century prior to the setting of Sophie’s Choice, and Stingo’s
empathetic voice allows the reader to feel comfortable enough to truly acknowledge a
crucial point that an aspect of American History inspired one of the most tragic and cruel
occurrences in all of history. The significance of an enduring narrative voice within a
novel is that it allows for the reader to relate to the content of the literature, and
understand what the protagonist is going through. Stingo weaves in and out his life,
Sophie’s story and his reaction to it, in a way that is empathetic, and is a prime example
of a valuable narrative voice within literature. Every personal anecdote that he shares,
every side comment that he correlates to Sophie and her experiences, is strategically
placed in order to have context and substance.
Sophie’s Choice is much more within the depths of its words than being a story of
a woman who was forced to give a child up, and the love the narrator felt for the woman
who was suffering. This novel is an important aspect of literature because it highlights
parts of American history that many would prefer to forget rather than to take ownership
of. Stingo’s voice allows for the audience to accept that we are all correlated to aspects
of our history and our family that we may not be proud of. Styron uses Nazism as a
unique lens for the American perspective to witness the similarities. In history class we
are told that we must learn about the past in order to avoid recurring mistakes and
preventing disasters from happening. In many ways this is true. Yet, it is also vital to
know of both national and world history because it allows us to see the ways in which
everything is connected. While simultaneously assisting us to come to contend with the

5. fact that not only did our history ruin the lives of thousands by slavery, but that it also, in
some ways was an inspiration to a leader of a nation who was faced with a question of
how to get rid of an entire culture.

6. Works Cited
Crane, John Kenny. “The Root of All Evil: The Thematic Unity of William Styron’s
Fiction.”
Literature Resource Center. Ed. Roger Matuz. U of South Carolina P, 1984. Web.
28 May 2015.
Law, Richard G. “The Reach of Fiction: Narrative Technique in Styron’s Sophie’s
Choice.”
Literature Resource Center. Ed. Gale. N.p., Oct. 1990. Web. 11 May 2015.
Ross, Daniel W. “A Family Romance: Dreams and the Unified Narrative of Sophie’s
Choice. Page’s 129 to 145.” Literature Resource Center. Contemporary Literary
Criticism., 1989. Web. 8 May 2015.
Styron, William. Sophie’s Choice. New York: Vintage, 1992. Print.