Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. [Vol. 5.] Eger Journal of American Studies. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 25)

Studies - László Dányi: Interpretations of Sexuality in William Styron's Sophie's Choice

to have distinctive forms. Maybe the sound sequence is a word upstairs in Sophie and Nathan's room, but it sounds like a murmur or a groan in Stingo's room. Stingo's first love is Miriam Bookbinder, a Jewish girl. He remembers her while eating in a restaurant and enjoying his meal. One enjoyment evokes the image of another. "Enjoy, enjoy, Stingo, I said to myself ... I have from the very beginning responded warmly to Jews, my first love having been Miriam Bookbinder" (SC 45). Through the girl Stingo experiences empathy with Jews. The first episode which darkens Stingo's erotic fantasies is the Maria Hunt story. He loved the girl when he was fifteen, and his father writes about her death. Maria committed suicide. She was from a tragic household. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother had high moral demands on people. Maria Hunt's story coincides with that of Peyton Loftis in Styron's first novel entitled Lie Down in Darkness (1951). The 'doomed' Maria Hunt's life is embedded in Stingo's story, she is the link between the two novels. After reading about Maria Stingo has a nightmarish erotic dream. I soon fell into a heavy sleep that was more than ordinarily invaded by dreams. One of the dreams besieged me, nearly ruined me. Following several pointless little extravaganzas, a ghastly but brief nightmare, and an expertly constructed one-act play, I was overtaken by the most ferociously erotic hallucination I had ever experienced. (SC 52) This is the first time when love and death are interwoven in the way they appear in Edgar Allen Poe\s stories. Another erotic incident awakens Stingo from his nightmarish and erotic dream. He can hear the still unknown neighbors making love upstairs. In the previous situation the noises from upstairs were stimulating but now after bearing the burden of the Hunt story Stingo's response is different. He shouts, " 'Stop it!'... Fucking Jewish rabbits!" (SC 53). His anger expresses that Stingo interprets the neighbors' love-making in a different way compared to the first situation. The first time Sophie and Stingo meet, he catches sight of her body and finds it sexually attractive. Sophie's physical appearance, after her 42