This blog post deeply examines whether humans are beings capable of genuine free will choices, or beings whose choices are forced upon them by the vast currents of history and fate, using the film Sophie’s Choice as a lens.
Life is often called a series of choices. This phrase likely emphasizes how crucial an individual’s attitude or will is in determining their life. We aspire to be agents capable of making choices rather than merely enduring them. But are we truly living our lives according to our own choices and will?
Based on the 1979 novel by William Styron, the film ‘Sophie’s Choice’ poignantly depicts the horrors of war, personal tragedy, and the helplessness of an individual before the vast currents of history and time, through the lens of Sophie, a woman bearing an incurable wound.
The year is 1947, two years after the end of World War II. The film begins with the narration of Stingo, a young man from the American South. Stingo, who came to New York with dreams of becoming a novelist, finds a cheap room in Brooklyn and befriends Sophie, a Polish woman, and Nathan, a Jewish man. Living with the couple, Stingo learns of Sophie’s past. She lost her father and husband to Nazi extermination policies and was sent to Auschwitz concentration camp during the war. After the war, she was sent to a refugee camp in Sweden where she attempted suicide. Rescued, she came to America, met Nathan, and fell in love. Stingo develops feelings for Sophie but doesn’t express them while she’s with Nathan. However, when Nathan, who suffers from bipolar disorder, leaves Sophie, Stingo proposes, asking her to leave New York and start a new life together. Eventually, Sophie confides in Stingo about the horrific experiences she endured at Auschwitz.
In truth, Sophie had been traveling to the camp with two children. A German officer, drawn to Sophie’s beauty, forced her to make the horrific choice of saving only one child. Screaming in agony, Sophie ultimately chose to send her daughter to the gas chamber, an act that became a lifelong burden of guilt. This wound tormented her forever, an incurable scar.
The film ultimately ends with Sophie rejecting Stingo’s proposal and returning to Nathan, choosing to die by poisoning together. Sophie’s final choice was not a peaceful life with Stingo, but death alongside Nathan. Perhaps this was the only choice Sophie could make while living with an incurable wound.
In one scene, when Stingo asks Sophie about her religion, she replies that she used to be Catholic but no longer believes. What meaning could God have held for Sophie, who lost her father and husband, and was forced to push one of her two children to their death? Christianity tells us God loves and cares for us, but to Sophie, God was no different from the parents who abandoned her. Amidst war and tragedy, she could only despair, and even God failed to save her from her suffering.
At the film’s beginning, Stingo confesses that before meeting Sophie and Nathan, he was a naive fool ignorant of love and death. Perhaps for the same reason, I too am left with only questions about Sophie’s life and her final choice. There may be no clear-cut answer, but as time passes and our understanding of life deepens, might this film appear somewhat different? In truth, not just Sophie, but all of us may be forced to make choices before overwhelming forces. Society progresses and history moves forward through human reason, yet sometimes an individual’s will or attitude seems utterly powerless.
Despite its lengthy 2-hour-30-minute runtime, the film skillfully weaves together the stories of Sophie, Nathan, and Stingo. Meryl Streep’s commanding performance is another major draw. Through Sophie’s story, it poignantly conveys the madness and cruelty of war, the loss of humanity, and provokes deep reflection on love, life, and death.
This film goes beyond merely depicting the brutality of war; it makes us keenly feel how fragile and powerless human beings truly are. Simultaneously, it prompts us to reconsider what constitutes a genuine choice in our lives and the meaning such choices hold.
