Chapter 28, Kierkegaard Summary

Hilde continues to think how to rebel against her father and play some tricks on him. Hilde asks her mother about her father's planned flight home and finds that the Major will stop in the Copenhagen, Denmark airport. Hilde also resents her father ordering her to finish the book by long-distance telephone. Hilde then returns to the story. Sophie's lesson on the philosopher Kierkegaard is interrupted by Alice, of Alice and Wonderland, visiting. Sophie drinks one container brought by Alice and feels that "all is one," while the other makes her see multiplicity and many individualities. This is Sophie's introduction to the difference between Spinoza's philosophy, emphasizing the one, and Kierkegaard's philosophy, emphasizing individuality.

Kierkegaard is a Danish philosopher, who becomes very critical of his own society. His philosophy becomes a king of Existentialism, which he claims is in the tradition...