Ministry of higher and secondary specialized

2.2.WILLIAM STYRON (1925-2006) and Sophie's Choice

William Styron, (born June 11, 1925, Newport News, Virginia, U.S.—died November 1, 2006, Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts), American novelist noted for his treatment of tragic themes and his use of a rich, classical prose style.Styron served in the U.S. Marine Corps before graduating from Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, in 1947. During the 1950s he was part of the community of American expatriates in Paris. In 1953 he became an advisory editor to The Paris Review.Styron’s first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951), set in his native tidewater Virginia, tells of a young woman from a loveless middle-class family

who fights unsuccessfully for her sanity before committing suicide. His next work, The Long March (1956), chronicles a brutal forced march undertaken by recruits in
a marine training camp. The novel Set This House on Fire, complexly structured and set largely in Italy, appeared in 1960.Styron’s fourth novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), is an account of a historical incident, a slave rebellion led by the title character in Virginia in 1831. Based on a transcript of Turner’s testimony and told from his point of view, the book sympathetically portrays a man who is denied happiness because of his degrading enslavement. Embittered and alienated, he undertakes a bloody revolt that ends in his capture and execution. The novel’s publication at the peak of the civil rights movement helped make it a best seller. It was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1968, but it also stirred wide controversy, with critics accusing the book of racism and of misrepresenting African American history.Styron’s final novel, Sophie’s Choice (1979), portrays the growth of a friendship between a young Southern writer and a Roman Catholic woman from Poland who survived the Nazi death camp Auschwitz. It too became a controversial best seller, and the 1982 film adaptation was widely acclaimed. His other works included the play In the Clap Shack (1972) and This Quiet Dust (1982), a collection of essays that treat the dominant themes of Styron’s fiction. Darkness Visible (1990) is a nonfiction account of Styron’s struggle against depression. A Tidewater Morning (1993) consists of autobiographical stories. Havanas in Camelot (2008), a collection of personal essays on topics ranging from the author’s friendship with U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy to his morning walks with his dog, was published posthumously. Compilations of his correspondence were issued as Letters to My Father (2009) and Selected Letters of William Styron (2012)
Stingo, a well-known author, recounts the events of Sophie's Choice from more than two decades ago, in the summer of 1947, in a retrospective style. Stingo turned 22 that summer. He moved to New York City to pursue his dream of becoming a writer after growing up in Virginia. He briefly worked in the publishing industry before losing his job and deciding to devote the following months to writing while living on an inheritance from his family. He rented a
cheap room in a Brooklyn boarding house, where he met Nathan Landau and Sophie Zawistowska, two other tenants. Sophie was Polish and Catholic, while Nathan was a Jewish-American biologist. Sophie had immigrated to the United States after being detained in a concentration camp during World War II. There, she worked and learned English. Nathan and Sophie had a volatile relationship that was marked by intense sexual passion as well as violent arguments in which Nathan appeared to be physically and emotionally abusive to Sophie.Stingo quickly started spending most of his time with the couple SN Plus New Year. The novel he was writing, which was about the tragic life and death of a beautiful young woman, and his hopes of finding a woman who would be willing to sleep with him were his two other areas of focus. Despite Nathan's erratic behavior and sudden outbursts of aggression, Stingo resentfully admired him. In addition, Stingo had a crush on Sophie and began to learn more about her past. Stingo explains that Sophie revealed aspects of her past to him in fragmented and non-linear ways, and that she sometimes withheld crucial information that she only revealed later.After these deaths, Sophie and her mother moved to Warsaw in 1940 and lived there for three years. During this time, Sophie worked in a factory and became friends with a woman named Wanda, who was active in the Polish Resistance. In March 1943, Sophie was arrested for smuggling a ham and taken to a concentration camp. Wanda was arrested as well, and Sophie’s two children, Jan and Eva, were also seized and jailed. The existence of these two children is only revealed gradually, and Sophie initially did not mention them when she talked about her past with Stingo. The group was sent to Auschwitz, where Sophie, Wanda, and Jan were sent to the work camp. Eva, Sophie’s younger child, was sent to be killed immediately.Sophie’s skill with languages and typing meant that she became a valuable prisoner at the labor camp and was given slightly privileged treatment. In the autumn of 1943, Sophie was sent to work at the home of Commandant Rudolf Hoss, the Nazi official who was in charge of managing the mass killings taking place at the camp. Her knowledge of multiple languages and ability to type and
transcribe meant she could provide useful secretarial services. While doing her
work, Sophie was able to get to know Hoss, who admitted that he was attracted to her but was unwilling to engage in a sexual relationship. Sophie tried to endear herself to him by claiming to be anti-Semitic. Her main goal was to be allowed to see Jan or to have him released from the camp. However, Hoss only offered vague promises that he would try to help her son, and Sophie never learned whether Jan was freed or died in the camp.Stingo learned this information about Sophie’s past gradually over the months of June, July, and August. After months of happy friendship, one day in August, Nathan had a fit of anger toward Sophie and accused her of infidelity. The fight led to the couple separating and moving out of the boarding house, but Stingo accidentally crossed paths with Sophie a few days later. Sophie and Stingo went drinking together, and she told him additional details about her past, particularly about her time at Auschwitz. She also told Stingo some dark details about her relationship with Nathan. There had been previous episodes of erratic violence, and Nathan had a habit of abusing drugs. Months earlier, after suggesting they get married, Nathan had proposed a suicide pact in which he and Sophie would die together.
Sophie, Nathan, and Stingo reconciled after this episode, but later in the autumn, Stingo learned that Nathan was a paranoid schizophrenic who actively lied about his life and career. While Stingo was preoccupied with his own life, Nathan erupted in another violent outburst, and threatened the lives of both Stingo and Sophie. He believed that the two of them were having an affair. Worried for their lives, Stingo and Sophie left New York, planning to move to Virginia. As they travelled, Sophie shared more information about her past and eventually revealed a horrific episode she had never shared with anyone before. When Sophie first arrived at Auschwitz, she was told that one of her children would be killed immediately, and she had to choose which one. Sophie chose Eva and had been haunted by this action ever since. After Sophie told Stingo about her terrible choice, she and Stingo had sex. The next morning, Stingo awakened to find that Sophie had returned to New York alone. He followed her but arrived back at the
boarding house to learn that Sophie and Nathan had committed suicide together. Stingo has been haunted by memories of that summer and his relationship with Sophie ever since.


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иностранных языков / Постановление Президента Республики Узбекистан от 10декабря 2012 года ПК–1875. – Газета

«Народное слово», 11.12.2012 г., № 40(5630).


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