Sophie's Choice

Sophie is a blond, blue-eyed beauty of about 40. She is a Polish Catholic immigrant who barely survived the ordeal of 20 months in the concentration camp at Auschwitz. After the war, Sophie starts a new life in New York. With Nathan’s help, she overcomes the effects of wartime malnutrition and gets false teeth because her own have fallen out. She and Nathan become lovers and rent rooms in the same house in Brooklyn. A short time later, Stingo moves in and becomes their friend.

Sophie is haunted by guilt for the numerous mistakes she’s made during her lifetime and frequently blames herself for consequences that were not of her own making. Over the course of the novel, she reveals her hellish past to Stingo and discloses that she was forced to let her daughter die in a gas chamber at Birkenau to save the life of her son. Sophie’s self-destructive tendencies lead her to cling to her toxic relationship with Nathan even when she could free herself. She dies in a suicide pact with Nathan by taking a cyanide capsule.  

Nathan is a handsome Jewish man who helps Sophie recover from the effects of malnutrition and saves her life. Although Nathan claims to be a biologist, he is a paranoid schizophrenic who has been in and out of asylums for much of his life. His wealthy family tries to keep him on track, but Nathan’s addiction to Benzedrine and cocaine send him into dark moods that put the people around him at risk.

Early in their relationship, Nathan tries to persuade Sophie that the two should kill themselves using cyanide capsules. Even though this crisis is averted, Nathan later accuses both Sophie and Stingo of infidelity and threatens to shoot them. Despite his destructive behavior, Nathan’s charismatic nature fascinates both Stingo and Sophie. In the end, Nathan persuades Sophie to join him in a suicide pact. 

Stingo’s father is a kindly Southern gentleman who is baffled by his son’s fondness for New York. He makes a brief visit to the metropolis to convince his son to come back home. Stingo’s father has inherited a peanut farm in Virginia and wants Stingo to manage it for him. He encourages his son’s aspirations as a novelist but doesn’t interfere when Stingo makes the final decision to remain in the big city.

Sophie’s father, Professor Zbigniew Biegański, teaches law at Cracow University. He is a rabid anti-Semite who has written a pamphlet recommending that all Jews be exterminated. The professor only values his daughter to the extent that she can be useful in typing his manuscripts. Despite his efforts to ingratiate himself with the Nazis, Biegański is sent to a camp and later executed. Sophie’s mother, Mrs. Biegański, is a self-effacing woman totally devoted to her husband and daughter. Well-educated, Sophie’s mother teaches piano at the university and imparts her love of classical music to her daughter. She dies of tuberculosis several months after her husband’s death.

Sophie’s husband, Casimir Zawistowska, is a student of Biegański’s. He only married Sophie to please her father but has no real love for her. Like Biegański, Casimir is sent to a camp and later executed. Sophie’s children, 10-year-old Jan and 8-year-old Eva, accompany Sophie to the concentration camp. Eva is immediately sent to the gas chamber at Birkenau while Jan is sent to the Children’s Camp at Auschwitz. It is unknown if he survived the war.