:: 6 Works Cited
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Tragic Realization Through Trials in Works of William Styron

 
     The apocalyptic view maintains that life is a struggle between good and evil that can not be justified morally. Samuel Coale suggests that it is that ethical "quest, the search of values of [William Styron's] heroes amid the stark realities of pain and suffering" that plays into his novels (399). Nat Turner, in The Confessions of Nat Turner, revisits his insurrection and comes to terms with his relationship with God and his own role in the rebellion. The two main characters in Sophie's Choice, Stingo and Sophie, both go through separate trials and end with different conclusions concerning man's impact in life. In The Long March, Captain Mannix struggles with senseless death and his role in an opposing society. Each of these characters fights others but is also forced to confront the hell that his or her body houses.

 

    The Confessions of Nat Turner is divided into two parts: the rush of evil and violence and the calm after the storm. The story of the insurrection is told in flashback as Nat analyzes his actions from his jail cell. Throughout the rebellion, Nat defends himself by saying that God has commanded him to rid the world of white people. However, as he continues through his meditation, he realizes that God may have not been there after all, prodding him along. His first revelation comes when he finds he cannot pray in jail. Though he attempts to do so, the words do not come and he does not feel God's presence. Only after he thinks over the entire ordeal can he begin to talk to God again.

 

    Nat's motto throughout the insurrection originates from the Bible,  "The first shall be last and the last shall be first." Styron explains Nat's obsession with gaining power as humanistic: "The most compelling theme in history...is that of the propensity on the part of human beings to attempt to dominate one another" (Bluestein 396). However, Nat may not be compelled by slavery reasons alone. Richard Pearce suggests that Nat feels compelled to conquer because he is filled with irrational energies that deny psychological and aesthetic resolution (113-17). Throughout the novel, Nat feels suppressed emotions toward Margaret Whitehead, a flirtatious young white woman.  Using this, Pearce implies that the Nat's rebellion is driven not by his bondage, but from how society has denied him his right to love and be loved (116). This inside force is the cause rather than slavery.

 

    Although he leads the massacre, Nat can not kill anyone.  This can be explained by Nat's subconscious desire not to kill, but just to be free. In the end, he kills only Margaret. Louis Rubin states that he is "motivated by the sublimation of his desire for the white woman of his dreams" (Pearce 116). Nat's excuse that "slavery led to dehumanization and divested the slave of honor moral responsibility, and manhood" is slowly stripped away to reveal Nat's wanton desire to be free (Pearce 115). He continues to blame slavery until his final day before he dies, when his revelation occurs. He remembers that Margaret quoted the Bible, "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God" (Nat 426). Nat then remembers that God is a morning star; God is good and love. He accepts that he is the sole cause and drive of the operation, and that God would not have promoted it. He now understands why he has not been able to communicate with God; his god had been a fabrication of his yearnings.

 

    Despite this harsh reality, Nat contently says, "But nothing disturbs me, I drowse in the arms of a steadfast and illimitable peace...I no longer shiver so" (421-2). With this peaceful knowledge that God stands with him now, Nat looks to death with welcoming. "Yes...I would have done it all again" (428). With these last words of conviction, Nat goes onto another life. He pities those who have to stay on earth because he will go on to a better place. He has been bound his whole life, and only now is he let free to meet the stranger he calls God.

    Sophie's Choice produces another moral dilemma. Sophie emerges from the Holocaust with a huge burden of guilt brought on by her survival. Until she talks about her experiences openly with her confidant, Stingo, she blames all the evil in the world on her father, whose dream comes true with the production of Auschwitz. During the months of planning and scheming, Sophie feels safe while the Jews are rounded up because she belongs to the inside circle on the right side. Not until she is captured does she question her silent convictions that the Holocaust is for a good cause. She feels guilt because of her anti-Semitic background and the resulting terrible destruction brought on by people like her. Sophie struggles to understand why she lived while more innocent people did not. Stingo calms her by remarking, "No one will ever understand Auschwitz" (513). As Styron puts it, "The query: At Auschwitz, where was God? And the answer: Where was man?" (513). Styron "does not simply dwell on the tragic human waste of the Holocaust; rather, he explores the human responsibility for it" (Magill n.pag.)  Sophie has an "acute sense of how dreadfully human beings have betrayed one another in the Holocaust" (Magill n.pag.).  Sophie hates God because she did not see Him in Auschwitz.  Where was God's guidance for the people responsible for this massacre?

 

  It is also in the name of God that Sophie is forced to choose between her two children. Because she is not Jewish, the doctor at Auschwitz allows her to keep one of her children. Although this offer seems heartfelt, it actually requires her to condemn the other child. Dr. Jemand Von Niemand enforces this impossible task in order to restore God. By creating an unthinkable sin, he believes he will be closer to God (Coale 401).

 

    In her talks with Stingo, Sophie realizes the fragility of life and that she can not hold herself responsible now for what she has already done. With therapy, she could eventually accept life and go on, but her relationship with Nathan keeps her down. Nathan is a Jewish schizophrenic who continually blames Sophie for the downfall of mankind. He reminds her of her painful decision and prevents her from finding salvation. He breaks her down until she can no longer live. Hoffman suggests that the pathos of man is caused by psychological failure (524). The guilt consumes her and her passionate need to please Nathan leads to her untimely death. She dies without forgiving herself, thus without salvation and without the acceptance of God. Her tragic realization comes too late, after she gives up her mind and slowly floats toward failure.

 

     Styron explains this pessimistic view of life, saying that there is no rational order in life (Kakutani 394). After her death, Stingo thinks of her life and weeps. He says, "I was unprepared to weep for all humanity" (515), but he goes to sleep, not a young, innocent, but a transformed man. However, when he wakes in the morning, he feels redeemed, renewed, and refreshed. "This was not judgment day--only morning. Morning: excellent and fair" (515). As Samuel Coale suggests, Stingo wakes from the nightmare to find the rest of the world untouched by his personal holocaust. Although damned from the past, he is saved by the future. He has another chance,  "a return to normalcy after the exorcism" (Coale 401). Sophie only exists as a lingering dream, and Stingo goes on to continue his life.

 

    The Long March explores the immunity that senseless violence produces over war-torn years. The novella starts after eight Marines are killed during training by the misfiring of two mortar shells. It seems to Captain Mannix, an aging retiree, that he wakes up from a peaceful rest only to find the usual life of violence and war. However, it is not a war with a cause but an irrational accident that forces him to question the worth of war.  Mannix feels troubled because he can not justify the destruction; it is mindless and wasteful. During the march, he contemplates the horrendous deaths while becoming furious because of the physical pain and bitter because of his hurt pride. Coale remarks, "Such a war-torn spirit leads...to spiritual paralysis" (399).

 

    As Lieutenant Culver says, "And so it was that those first hours...as being the most harrowing of all...because he was in possession of his intellect, his mind lashing his spirit as pitilessly as his body" (March 78). Culver, although bedraggled from the terrible occurrence that morning, runs quietly, accepting the march and the pain of life.

 

Mannix, however, can not live with such a pessimistic view. In searching for a more optimistic answer though, he falls lower. Mannix is insecure that he is out of shape, and, to compensate, he vows to run the entire race. He also forces every man in his troop to run the whole distance. Frederick Hoffman says that Mannix creates "a situation in which the character, trying to meet an awkward situation, makes it worse and retreats clumsily or despairingly from it" (524). Throughout the march, he complains bitterly and snaps at those who are lagging behind. He wants them to pay for his pain. Mannix wishes to meet the world on its absurd terms and thus becomes a reduced figure (Pearce 98).

 

    Somewhere along the way, a nail gets caught in his shoe, making each step worse. Mannix refuses to stop and take it out, while also refusing to accept a ride back to camp. He means to make a statement by this, but it shows nothing and only hurts him. He continues to run with a pronounced limp, and as he tires, his arm flail about, and he yells more loudly. "Crapping out" proves not to be an option, and he publicly condemns all who give up. He is too unsure of himself to stand up and stop running for his health. Culver wants to say to him that he has "already lost the battle. Defiance, pride, endurance - none of these would help" (101). Mannix continues into damnation and falls "farther and farther out of paradise" (Brandriff 514). Society has placed this task on him, so he runs. Instead of looking like a martyr at the end, he comes out looking pathetic, stripped of all self-dignity.  When he returns to camp, he has been reduced to nothing, and within all his pain, he despairingly admits defeat.

 

    Using these three works as vehicles, Styron clearly explains that "man is surprised, ambushed, senselessly assaulted-not to the end of defeat or destruction, not to any end at all" (Pearce 105). But what one does with those punches is the key to life. Styron proposes two options: one can either give up and die, or awake and face the dawning day. Although Sophie fails, Nat, Mannix, and Stingo all look ahead to starting anew.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Bluestein, Gene. "Styron as a Muse." The Progressive. Jan 1984, 35-6.  Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 60. New York: Gale,

    1990, 396-399.

Brandriff, Welles T. "The Role of Order and Disorder In 'The Long March'." English Journal. 1967. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism,

Vol. 11. Detroit, Michigan: Gale, 1979, 514-515.

Coale, Samuel. "Styron's Disguises: A Provisional Rebel in Christian Masquerade." Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction. 1985, 35-6.

Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 60. New York: Gale, 1990, 399-403.

Hoffman, Frederick J. "William Styron: The Metaphysical Hurt." The Art of Southern Fiction: A Study of Some Modern Novelists. 1967.

Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 15. Detroit, Michigan: Gale, 1980, 524-26.

Kakutani, Michiko. "William Styron and His Life and Work." The New York Times Book Review. Dec 1982, 3,26. Rpt. in

    Contemporary Literary Criticism, Vol. 60. New York: Gale, 1990, 394-96.

Pearce, Richard. "William Styron." American Writers. Ed. Leonard Unger.  New York: Scribner's, 1974.

    "Sophie's Choice." Magill Book Reviews. 1979, n.pag. MAS.

Styron, William. The Confessions of Nat Turner. New York: Random,1966.

_____. The Long March. New York: Random, 1952.

_____. Sophie's Choice. New York: Random, 1976.