Sophie's Choice - Trauma of the Holocaust Survivor

This bachelor thesis focuses on the Holocaust trauma and its depiction in William Styron's novel Sophie's Choice. Many novelists have endeavoured to describe this phenomenon in their works of art, but most of them were confronted with a great challenge - to depict the story they didn't experience, a story of the Holocaust survivor. William Styron is one of them. Therefore it is necessary to consider how precise depiction the novelist offers to his readers. The aim of this work is to analyze Styron's novel and discover whether Sophie's choice includes an authentic depiction of the Holocaust survivor's trauma. The first chapter of the work focuses on trauma. Its aim is to define trauma and research this phenomenon in wider context. There are many psychological theories of trauma and its treatment. For the purpose of this work Jungian psychoanalytic approach has been chosen. C. G. Jung and his disciples have widely explored the inner world of patients suffering from trauma. Moreover, psychoanalysis has made great effort to describe how trauma manifests itself through archetypal imagery and symbols present in dreams and fantasies of traumatized patients. Therefore this psychological theory is applicable when analyzing a work of art. The most widespread psychological diagnosis of people who have..