The Holocaust like racial slavery remains a monumental and troubled issue. Some writers have suggested that even trying to write about it only cheapens and "romanticizes" it. Styron's oblique connection with it — he never really takes us into the concentration camps — suggests that he is more interested in the effects of the Holocaust than in actually reproducing and re-creating it. All the characters in the novel are in some way affected by it, and this might be the broadest and deepest issue with which to begin an in-depth discussion about the novel.

1. Is there an unresolvable confrontation between the redemptive conclusions of Styron's novels and the landscape of depression and despair which they create? What do you feel about Stingo's "recovery" at the end of the novel?

2. What do you make of Dr. Jemand von Niemand in Sophie's Choice? Styron suggests that he forces...