Unlike The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967) and Sophie's Choice (1979), in which the characters are victims of the dehumanizing systems (slavery, Nazism) they tried to fight (Nat Turner) or cheat (Sophie), Styron's first novel deals with the self- induced, hopeless suffering of one upper-middle-class Virginia family. Yet Lie Down in Darkness, despite its exclusive focus on one family's spiritual and moral disintegration, is Styron's most pessimistic and depressing novel. It offers no hope, no redemption reinforcing the novel's theme: the family's inability to love, to overcome their selfishness, to see beyond their petty but.....
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