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Nazi Children, Christian Anti-Semitism, and the New Atheist in William Styron's Sophie's Choice
- MFS Modern Fiction Studies
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 60, Number 1, Spring 2014
- pp. 138-164
- 10.1353/mfs.2014.0007
- Article
- Additional Information
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Traditional atheists believe that the loss of faith leads to melancholic mourning. New atheists, by contrast, consider the God-concept to be a hideous human invention, so they rejoice rather than mourn on the occasion of God's death. Sophie is a traditional atheist early in the novel Sophie's Choice, but she is a new atheist by the end. What leads to her transformation is her realization that Christianity made the Nazis believe that exterminating the Jews was a political necessity. She makes this discovery in a conversation with the eleven-year-old Emmi, the daughter of the Commandant of Auschwitz.