42 pages • 1 hour read
William StyronSophie's Choice
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1979A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Classical Music
When Sophie tells Stingo about her happy childhood, she mentions the all-pervasive influence of music. Her mother was a piano teacher at the university, and Sophie always intended to follow in her footsteps. Although the war disrupted Sophie’s musical aspirations, she continues to crave the sound of classical music for the rest of her life.
While working in Höss’ office, she can hear the sound of the radio playing downstairs. Although she is delighted to hear classical compositions that she recognizes, Sophie reacts with distaste to popular German tunes. Later, Wanda asks her to steal that same radio because music and news from the outside world would make an enormous difference in the quality of life for the prisoners in the labor camp.
When Sophie first meets Nathan, he provides a phonograph and records for her listening pleasure. Stingo first becomes aware of the couple upstairs because of the sound of their phonograph. He, too, shares Sophie’s love of the classics and identifies various compositions as they relate to events in the story. During one of Nathan’s dark moods, he demands that Sophie return all his records, knowing that this is one of the best ways to hurt her.
After Sophie and Stingo run away together, she asks if there will be any music down South. She reacts in alarm when Stingo informs her about the limited classical selections to be found there. After Sophie and Nathan are found dead, the record player is still going. Stingo notes with poignancy the composition that was played last: “I don’t want to give it a larger connotation than it deserves, for Sophie and Nathan had fled faith […] in their final anguish—or ecstasy […] the sound they heard was Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” (554-55).
Language Arts
Language, in all its forms, plays an important role in Sophie’s Choice. Sophie herself is a linguist. She speaks fluent Polish, German, French, Russian, and Yiddish. While her English skills are limited at the beginning of the story, she painstakingly conquers her worst grammatical mistakes as the novel progresses. Her conversations with Stingo frequently lapse into French when she can’t think of the correct English word to express herself.
Sophie’s facility with languages makes her valuable to the Nazis, along with her ability to type and take dictation in German shorthand. Aside from the more rudimentary aspects of communication, literature also features prominently in her awareness. Sophie begins reading English authors in translation and then graduates to the books in their native form. Her fateful first meeting with Nathan only takes place because she has gone to the college library in search of a book of poems.
Aside from Sophie’s facility with words, Stingo also demonstrates a preoccupation with language. He begins the story as an editor at a publishing house but quickly tells the reader that he aspires to become a novelist. After leaving his job, he’s counseled to “write your guts out” (26). Part of the reason for Stingo’s devotion to Nathan is that the latter takes his writing seriously. Nathan seems to perceive real talent in Stingo and encourages the young man to continue.
During the story, Stingo writes a large part of his first novel. Because he’s telling Sophie’s story from the perspective of an established novelist 20 years down the road, the reader learns that Stingo has achieved his dream. Ultimately, the only way that Stingo can exorcise the ghosts of Sophie and Nathan from his consciousness is by writing down their story to share with the world.
Stingo’s Virginity
Aside from Stingo’s focus on writing, his main obsession in life is losing his virginity. At 22, he feels embarrassed that all his encounters with women leave him intact. He doesn’t seem particularly interested in falling in love as much as gaining what he perceives to be much-needed sexual experience. Stingo has several near misses, and none of his liaisons result in copulation in the conventional sense.
To further complicate the pathetic state of Stingo’s sex life, he has the misfortune to fall head over heels in love with Sophie. He’s aware that Nathan is the love of her life, but Stingo will take any excuse to spend time in her company and inadvertently becomes Sophie’s sounding board and father confessor. In that role, he shares greater emotional intimacy with her than Nathan does. Because Sophie is in love with Nathan, she never shares with him what she considers to be her guiltiest secrets. She reserves these for Stingo’s ears alone, and he is the only person in the world who knows about her sacrifice of Eva.
After Stingo and Sophie flee Nathan, their time together on the train and in the hotel offers Stingo greater physical access to Sophie. Although he proposes matrimony, he never suggests that they should have sex. Much to his surprise, Sophie initiates a sexual coupling, and Stingo finally loses his virginity. Of course, his ecstasy over having obtained Sophie’s favors is short-lived. The following morning, she returns to Nathan, and the two fulfill their grim destiny.
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