SOLORIA, JOANNE O.

BSEE 2-EB

Instructions: Come up with a Reflection Paper centered on the following questions:

I. Plot Summary (1-2 paragraphs only)

Sophie’s Choice

Stingo, a young Southern writer who is the author’s thinly veiled alter ego, narrated the story way back in
the 1940s. Stingo became friends with Nathan Landau, a smart but unstable Jew, and Sophie Zawistowska, a
stunning but troubled Polish exile, in a boardinghouse in Brooklyn, New York. Nathan makes the false claim that he
is a Harvard alumnus working for a pharmaceutical company as a cellular biologist. He has paranoid schizophrenia
and uses stimulants, but almost no one knows this, not even Sophie and Stingo. As the story goes on, Sophie
reveals her past to Stingo. She talks about her father, an outright anti-Semite who taught law in Kraków, her
refusal to support him in his propaganda efforts, her detention by the Nazis, and in particular, her brief time
working as a stenographer-typist in the house of Rudolf Höss, the camp's commandant, where she was interned.

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 make their way out of New York, Sophie shares her most horrifying secret,
which is that the night she arrived at Auschwitz, a camp doctor forced her to decide which of her two children
would die instantly by gassing and which would live on, albeit in the camp. Sophie sacrificed her daughter Eva, age
8, out of her two children, a choice that has left her in despair and burdened with remorse. Sophie is ready to self-
destruct with Nathan, who has already made an attempt to get her to kill herself with him. Sophie is now an
alcoholic and is very miserable. One time, Sophie and Stingo shared a night, and Stingo even proposed to Sophie,
but Sophie still chose to be with Nathan, leaving a note for Stingo with a message explaining that she needed to go
back to Nathan. Stingo returned to Brooklyn and burst into tears to discover that Sophie and Nathan took their
own lives by consuming sodium cyanide.

II. Insights and Judgments

Never should a mother be forced to decide which of her kids to raise. She shouldn't ever have to stifle the
lives of one child to allow the other to flourish. It just doesn't seem right. However, in this case, Sophie is
compelled to pick between her two kids.

If I were in her shoes, I would face this difficulty with a mix of sadness, anxiety, and rage. I would be angry
at the fact that someone could be so cruel and sadistic as to take away one of my children's precious lives and take
the other one away from me, but I would also be scared for my children as to how they would face my difficult
decision.

The biggest gift we can have in life is our children, but mothers find it indescribably difficult to consider
handing over control of their children to someone else. If I were in this situation, it would be so hard for me to
choose between my children, but I do not have a choice but to choose. Consequently, I will choose my son over my
daughter, just like Sophie did. This is due to the possibility that my son will have a higher chance of surviving the
concentration camp than my daughter does. He was an older man, and boys were seen to be more tough and
resilient than females.

At the end of the film, Sophie and Nathan commit suicide. Maybe Sophia felt too much guilt and too much
despair to continue living after everything she had endured. She was drawn to Nathan, and she is ready to self-
destruct with Nathan, who has already made an attempt to get her to kill herself with him. Afterwards, Sophie
couldn’t bear the burden of her losses and ended her own life to stop the feelings of pain and guilt.
 III. Reaction and your Afterthoughts

Sophie's "choice" could possibly refer to her difficult choices made in the story. One of the "choices" is to
be with Nathan, even though he is abusing and harassing her. This reflects her turbulent background and the
psychological vulnerability she experiences as a result of going through horrific experiences during the war. While
the main "choice" being talked about is the choice she made being forced by an armed Nazi guard, who demands
Sophie choose between her two small children, her son or her daughter. The guard will order the killing of the two
of them if the mother does not make a decision, which is an impossible choice. It is an appalling act of torture
because Sophie will undoubtedly live with the trauma of this incident for the rest of her life. It's impossible to
explain why she made this decision, except from the supposition that if her daughter dies, she won't ever have to
go through the agony of giving birth to a child who is taken away and killed. She chooses for her daughter to be
taken and for her son to survive.