Document Type
Article
Publication Date
Summer 2016
Publication Title
Journal of Modern Literature
Abstract
Scholars have suggested that William Styron’s Nathan in Sophie’s Choice is insane or depraved—a character whose motivations lack rationality at best and are unambiguously evil at worst. Elie Wiesel, the author of the famous Holocaust memoir Night, has been very critical of Styron’s novel. Ironically, by using the Yiddish version of Wiesel’s memoir Night, it is possible to demonstrate that Nathan’s behavior is more “logical” than scholars have previously understood. This approach offers us a new way of reading and interpreting Styron’s novel by clarifying how Nathan’s character functions within a well-established tradition of sociopolitical outrage about racial oppression, which is best exemplified in James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, a text that Styron strategically references in Sophie’s Choice.
Volume
39
Issue
4
First Page
85
Last Page
103
DOI
10.2979/jmodelite.39.4.07
ISSN
0022-281X
Rights
Copyright © The Trustees of Indiana University
Recommended Citation
Lackey, Michael, "The Scandal of Jewish Rage in William Styron's Sophie's Choice" (2016). English Publications. 25.
https://digitalcommons.morris.umn.edu/eng_facpubs/25
Primo Type
Article
Comments
This article was published as:
Michael Lackey. “The Scandal of Jewish Rage in William Styron's Sophie's Choice.” Journal of Modern Literature, vol. 39, no. 4, 2016, pp. 85–103.
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