Sophies Choice

Quantum Quack

Quantum Quack

Life's a tease...
Valued Senior Member
pre-amble: Some of the choices we make are incredibiliy difficult, being vexatious in nature. Sometimes we can avoid making decisions but sometimes we are in a situation that is impossible to avoid. "Sophies choice" to me would be an example of one of the saddest moments of human nature at work and I thought I would open a discussion on the phyillosphy of choices that we sometimes have to make.



Sophie’s Choice

A while ago a movie was produced called Sophie’s Choice.

It was set during the second world war and Sophie was a Jewish mother of two young children (a boy and a girl) being sent with her children to a concentration camp.

She as with most Jewish captives had very little knowledge of what the German soldiers had in mind.

(The Choice)

The train she was travelling in arrived at their destination. She and her children disembarked and were confronted by a German officer.

The German Officer said to Sophie:

Only one of your children can Live. The other child will be executed.
He asked her to decide:
Which child should live and which child should die?

She made a decision and had to live with the consequences for the rest of her life.


What choice would you make if you had to choose between both of your children?


This question of choice I feel is a very important example of responsibility.

And often the issue of “Sophie’s Choice” comes to mind.

How would you approach this difficulty?
 
Such a choice would be impossible for any parent to make.

I have no children but if I were ever put into such a horrid situation, the answer would be simple. Take me and spare my children. I'd give my life for theirs, no questions asked.

But to have to choose between your children? No loving parent could ever do it. Be impossible.


:eek:
 
I agree but the German officer has forced the mother into an impossible situation.

I have given this vexation some long consideration and as sad and tragic as it is:

If I were Sophie I would say to the German officer "You choose!"

For Sophie to accept the decision as being in part hers she assumes a certain complicity and is aiding the German officer in his crime. The responsibility for her childrens life rests squarely on his shoulders and to decide what choice she should make is allowing the german officer a greater ability to abuse.

So we take the question a little further,

The German officer says "If you don't choose one of the children they will both be executed" ( I'm sorry....(tears))


The choice she must make is unbelievable in it's abuse.

But the only decision she can possibly make is that based on the premise that they are already dead.

And make the officer fully responsible for his abuse and crime.

This is how I would decide and It's all very well in hindsight but well Sophie chose that the Boy should live and he died any way.

But as the movie shows Sophie lived in misery for the rest of her life because she let her daughter be executed and not her son.

The thing is: it isn't her choice to make in the first place. If she believed in God then it would be better left to him to decide.

If she didn't believe in God then it is the officers decision not Sophies.

Am I right in this decision?
 
Maybe it was not evident enough from the film, but the irony of Sophie's choice is that her son died anyway - after he suffered a lot (hunger, cold, harsh treatment etc.), while daughter died quickly. Styron is one son-of-a-bitch writer.;)
 
so Styron was the author, thanks, and to tell the truth I couldn't remember the film too well as all I could remember was the choice. I last saw the film a long time ago may be 20 years.

Yes as an author he has encapsulated it very well.
 
By forcing the officer to choose would still be a harrowing decision, because one would still do so with the knowledge that you are allowing one of your children to die. By telling the officer to decide, you're just passing the buck basically. Personally I'd still say kill me instead. Either that or I'd attack the officer and try and kill him and deny the kids were mine in the hope that they'd somehow be spared and survive (it's doubtful that they would, but they could, hence the whole basis of the story in a way I guess). By attacking the officer I'd hopefully take attention away from the children and ensure that I would be killed.

But the fact that the boy died anyway is one reason why she lived in misery for the rest of her life... If she'd picked the son instead to be killed, the daughter may have survived the ordeal. I agree though, it was a hell of a good book.


:eek:
 
I would save the child with the greatest chance of survival.

As a father I would feel that I had a duty to ensure that the child that remained had every possible advantage.

Although it may well prove to be an impossible decision.

To open the debate, would this decision be 'easier' for a father or a mother?

Dee Cee

BTW How did Sophies son die?
 
I think in the film sophie tried to prostitute herself for the life of her son but he died (rather badly) any way.

I would think the choice would be just as difficult but in a slightly different way for a father as well.

AS a man and father I would choose as I have described earlier in that It is not my choice to make. but it seems I am alone in this position.
 
Bells,

Actually you pose a valid alternative in that knowing that they were going to die It is possible for sophie to die trying to save them and if all died then so be it.

The problem is this is not an alternative in the film, in that she virtually has a gun at her head all the time.

The choice is more or less absolute in that there is no room for grace.

The old saying that states that you can't make a pact with the devil and expect to win is valid I feel.

The abuser (Officer) is the devil and all he is interested is in your suffering and nothing else. So to expect any mercy or generousity is an excersise of delusion.
 
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I don't know the ages of Sophies children but if they understood would you consult them?

Now that is scary.
it seems I am alone in this position.
Click to expand...
I understand your point of view but for me, somehow it seems the easy way out.

I'd attack the officer and try and kill him and deny the kids were mine in the hope that they'd somehow be spared and survive
Click to expand...
If there was an alternative I would take it.
Dee Cee
 
unfortunately there is no alternative.

Letting both children die would not be an easy way out. The thing is there is no easy way out.

Loose loose situation and only to die with dignity is left.

I probably would kill myself later any way or draw fire somehow.
 
The next question and probably even harder to answer is:

After you survived the war and lost both children will you ever be able to forgive that officer?
 
Actually, the choice between her two children was not the only Sophie’s choice. To see it this way is oversimplification. We can see that she was making bad or futile choices during her entire life. The worst choices of all were always her choices of man – she could not choose her father, of course, but was free to rebel against him when she was old enough and understood his racism – she went to ghetto, was thinking about „Jewish question“ – but did nothing. Then she married the man she did not love. Then fell in love with man destined to death, then tried to seduce the SS officer and finally fell in love with mentally ill Nathan. Except the man from polish resistance movement they all abused her – including Nathan. Nathan was maybe the worst – he finally destroyed her. On the other hand, she totally ignored Stingo – maybe the only man in her life who really respected her and idolized her.
Another never ending fight of her was that between her good intentions, her responsibility and her cowardice. Yes, she was coward – she was too scared to oppose her father, she denied to join resistance movement, it was her fright what betrayed her when she was smuggling the ham, in concentration camp she was not able to steal the radio, in my opinion it was not because of love but again because of fright that she did not leave Nathan – she was too afraid to be alone again, without somebody who would care about her. And finally she killed herself because she was scared of life. In other words – Sophie is really tragic archetype, destined to doom from the very beginning. But I feel also some dash of irony in the way Styron created her.
 
All fall down

If you're truly up against that wall, draw the line, stand with your children, and go down together.

Or so says me.
 
Source: CNN.com
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/31/tsunami.families/index.html
Title: "Sisters see spouses die; mom makes wrenching choice"
Date: December 31, 2004

Although this topic has been dormant for over a year, I confess it leapt to mind as soon as I saw the headline. A tale from the tsunami:

Jillian Searle and her sons Blake, 20 months, and Lachie, 5, were finishing breakfast poolside at the Holiday Inn in Phuket. Her husband, Brad, had just gone to their hotel room for a diaper when towering waves sent her running.

From the balcony, Brad watched Jillian clutch the boys and lose her strength. Hotel fire escape doors were barred shut, and he couldn't reach his family ....

...."I had both of them in my hands -- one in each arm -- and we started going under," Jillian recounted. "I knew I had to let go of one of them, and I just thought I'd better let go of the one that's the oldest."

And she did.

Jillian Searle asked a young woman to take hold of Lachie who has always feared water, cannot swim and was pleading for his mother to keep holding him, she told The West Australian.

Brad Searle opened a blocked door with a crowbar and reached his wife just before a second wave struck. When that deluge subsided, the parents found the stranger who told them she had been forced to let Lachie go.

They found Lachie two hours later in a flooded room. The boy had mud marks up to his ears. Lachie told his parents that he'd dog paddled as fast as he could, then caught hold of a door handle and held on as water rushed passed him.

CNN.com
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I admit that I don't understand aquaphobia in the first place, and am struck by a curiosity as to how such an event--such dependence and necessary abandonment twice in Hell--affects such a mind.

Nonetheless, nightmares abound. I simply can't imagine.
____________________

Notes:

CNN.com. "Sisters see spouses die; mom makes wrenching choice". December 31, 2004. See http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/12/31/tsunami.families/index.html​
 
WE can only hope that in our own life times we are never in this double vexation.....Btw yes it the thread has been dormant a long time, and yet it is one of thoses situations that we all dread the possibility of all the time.

I know speaking for my self that when the movie first came out [Sophies Choice] and saw it it took a while for the choice to be understood by myself. But once it did I know I would never forget the nature of a "double" vexation. "damned if you do , Damned if you don't" in such a severe situation.

Being master of your own decisions and choices [freewill] sometimes has a price attached hey?
 
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