The Tragic Conflict in Sophie's Choice
Abstract
William Styron (1925-2006) is generally recognized as one of the most accomplished and creative of all post-World War II American novelists. Sophie’s Choice is a realistic novel written by William Styron. The book dissected Sophie’ choice and her tragedy life to readers with flashback approach, and the tragic conflict led to both physical and spiritual death.
This thesis employs the Tragedy Conflict Theory as theoretical foundation and mainly focuses on Sophie’s tragedy. It adopts content analysis as research methods. It first gives a brief introduction of the writer, his work Sophie’s Choice, and above all the tragedy conflict theory. Then it discusses the social roots of the conflicts between Sophie and the cruel social circumstances. After that, this thesis gradually portrays the result of Sophie’s life-long hopeless struggles—her total desperation towards her life and her future. At last, it shows that the essence of Sophie’s tragedy, which is caused by her life-long suffering from social conflicts and personal clashes.
This thesis not only analyzes Sophie’s tragedy, but also provides some references for the study of “Sophie’s choice”.
Key words: tragic conflict, social conflicts, personal clashes
摘        要
威廉.斯泰伦(1925-2006)被公认为是二战后期美国最富成就和创新的小说家。《苏菲的选择》是他创作的一部现实主义小说。文章通过倒叙的手法将苏菲一次次的选择和她人生的悲剧剖析给读者，也正是这些悲剧性冲突导致她肉体及灵魂的死亡。
本文以悲剧性冲突为理论依据，以内容分析为研究方法，致力于研究苏菲的人生悲剧。文章首先是对作者、作品及悲剧冲突理论的简单介绍。其次系统阐述女主人公苏菲与其社会环境之间多方面的矛盾冲突。然后指出这些冲突给苏菲带来了巨大的痛苦，造成了她对未来和对生活的悲观绝望。最后得出苏菲式悲剧的原因在于社会冲突和自我冲突的影响和挤压的结论。
本文不仅研究苏菲的人生悲剧，也为“苏菲式悲剧”的解读提供参考依据。
关键词：悲剧性冲突，社会矛盾，自身矛盾