ABSTRACT:William Styron’s Sophie's Choice is mainly set in a concentration camp during World War II, covering themes like betrayal, salvation, and guilt. The novel reflects the evil of the war and its endless harm to people. The choices Sophie makes in her life make her not only one of the victims of the war, but also an accomplice, and therefore they resulted in a strong sense of guilt in her. My graduation paper aims to interpret Sophie’s strong sense of guilt resulted from her betrayal of faith, justice and dignity by analyzing the choices made by her in pre-war times and the concentration camps. The researcher focuses on the six stories which Sophie tells, intending to analyze the sources of her sense of guilt and the reason for its increasing intensity. The researcher finally draws a conclusion that war will definitely do irrecoverable harm to man, and that peace should be the eternal pursuit of man.
Keywords: sense of guilt, religion, justice, dignity, betrayal
中文摘要:小说《苏菲的选择》以二战集中营的大屠杀为背景，涉及了背叛、救赎和负罪感等主题，反映出战争的罪恶和它对人类的巨大伤害。女主人公苏菲所做的多次选择，使她不仅是战争的受害者，更是同谋，这使她心中充满了负罪感。本论文通过分析苏菲在被捕之前以及在集中营内所作的多次选择，讨论苏菲由于对信仰、正义以及尊严的背叛所产生的强烈负罪感。论文围绕着苏菲讲述的关于自己的六个故事展开，分析负罪感的来源及其愈演愈烈的原因。研究者最终得出结论：战争给人类带来的创伤无法愈合，和平才是人类永恒的追求。
关键词：负罪感、信仰、正义、尊严、背叛
