Sophie’s Choices – What Choices Are We Forced To Make? What Choices Do We Force Ourselves To Make?

The movie and novel Sophie’s Choice examine the choices of the main character:  Sophie, a woman who lives through WW II, the Auschwitz concentration camp, and the years after the war.

Many of the great stories about the Holocaust reveal excruciating moral crucibles where ordinary people are forced to make inhumane survival decisions.  From Elie Wiesel’s “Night” to Art Spiegelman’s “Maus I” and “Maus II” to Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist” to Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” – each story illustrates horrific actions by both the Nazis and the victims.

In “Sophie’s Choice,” Sophie is like most women of her era, relatively powerless and regularly faced with compromising ethical choices.  Her father has her type his speeches where he calls for the extermination of the Jews.  She has a Jewish lover.  She works hard not to draw attention to herself and not to ruffle the waters because she wants to protect her children.

She is arrested for smuggling a ham to her dying mother.  Upon entering Auschwitz, she is asked which one of her two children to keep and which to let go.  She refuses to make a decision until a man threatens to take away all her children.  In that desperate moment, she chooses her son instead of her daughter.

A “Sophie’s Choice” has become culturally known as:

a)  A forced decision where there is no good alternative, or
b)  A decision where all options have equally negative outcomes, or
c)  A tragic choice between two unbearable options. 

For more complex summaries of the stories’ plots, visit either:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_Choice_%28novel%29

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophie%27s_Choice_%28film%29

After the war, Sophie becomes involved in a love triangle with two men.

 

Sophie, in the midst of facing again a choice between two people she loves, commits suicide.  It’s unclear whether the love triangle is a contributing factor in her decision to commit suicide.  Her depression and suicidal decision may have resulted from completely separate sources of motivation or lack of motivation.

As with all suicides, it’s never fully determinable what all the reasonings, or lack of reasonings, were for the departed. 

The book examines feminist and sexual ethical questions of:

a)  What choices are women allowed to make?, and 
b)  What choices are women forced to make?, and
c)  What choices do women force themselves to make?

According to Wikipedia:

“The book has been banned from many libraries world wide for Styron’s use of profanity and graphic sexuality throughout the novel.  Although this is altogether true, the author used these themes to create a realistic playout for the characters and to paint as vivid a picture as possible of what the times were like.”

I’ve always had trouble watching Sophie’s Choice, because I have trouble watching anyone being forced to make choices that no human should have to make.

At some point after considering Sophie’s Choice, I personally decided that if I was ever asked to choose between two loves . . .

I would choose not to exclude one for the other.

I would choose not to identify one as better than the other.

I would choose not to treat one better than the other.

That would be my choice.

Making that choice was probably easier for me to make than it would be for most people.  This is because I had parents who both made repeated and significant efforts to make it clear to their children that none of us was preferred and that all of us were loved equally with all their hearts.  Growing up, receiving all the benefits of such fair love and never experiencing second-tier treatment or consideration (from my parents), the concepts of loving others equally were more intuitive for me to understand, appreciate, and support.

And since making that choice, I’ve lived a life consistent with that choice.

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It’s important to emphasize the distinction highlighted in this post’s title.  In Sophie’s Choice, Sophie does not patiently consider which child she loves most, nor does she necessarily show preferential treatment.  Rather, in an instant where she was forced to make a choice, she chose to save one child because a man was threatening to take away all her children.

But the novel doesn’t stop there at the conclusion of that plot line.  The novel is not just a historical investigation about “the past.”  The book examines what choices Sophie forces herself to make after her choice at Auschwitz, when she no longer is being “forced” to choose between two loves, but she is being pressured to choose one or the other.

Unanswered questions the book raises include:

a)  Does Sophie choose just one man to identify herself with because society forces her to choose only one?
b)  Does Sophie choose to end her life on her own?  Or does her chosen lover effect her decision to kill herself with him?  Or was it vice versa?  Or did neither have a persuasive effect on the other’s tragic decision?
c)  If Sophie had lived, would she have continued seeing and loving both men in some fashion?
d)  Does Sophie ever learn how to healthfully deal with the consequences of the one choice she was forced to make at Auschwitz?  How do people in general learn to cope and/or move beyond singular major choices that bother them about their past?

I think the book’s title, “Sophie’s Choice,” was chosen carefully – to emphasize that Sophie has trouble dealing with one of her major choices in her past.  And that one choice effects most all her major choices thereafter.  The book creates a sympathetic portrait of people, especially women, who are often required to live the rest of their lives with the one choice they made.  And the book may suggest that requiring all women to make very discriminating choices about who they will love may not be healthy for all women. 

Our culture still creates strong social pressures on women and men to choose only one person with whom to identify as our “one love.”  And I get the sense that most people are just fine with that standard.

I believe “one true love” may not be best for everyone.  I don’t like that people, who honestly love more than one other person, are sometimes forced (or all but socially forced or guilted) into choosing only one love.  I wish more people would at least consider the possibility that some people may honestly love more than one other person, and loving more than one other person might, in some cases, be a healthy option.

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