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

Hurting the idol results in guilt. If you do not have the idol, you cannot hurt her. Through getting rid of her you could get rid of your guilt. But if you get rid of her, by killing her, or abandoning her, you will be a sinner. It is a vicious circle, and no way out is offered. First Stingo asks for her mother's forgiveness, but then, since he realizes that it is impossible now, he wants to get rid of the mother and forgiveness and the mother's death and everything connected to that incident. He escapes into dreams. His dreams are filled with sexuality. He dreams about sexual scenes and about the three women who have played an important role in his life. In his dream he visualizes ironically exaggerated sex scenes, "glistening coral-pink vulvas as lofty as the portals of the Carlsbad Caverns; pubic hair like luxuriant groves of Spanish moss; ejaculating priapic engines the size of sequoias; jumbo-sized dreamyfaced wet-lipped young Pocahontases in all conceivable and meticulously detailed attitudes of suck and fuck." (SC 363) Stingo mentions Pocahontas, who is a legendary heroine and respected by most Americans. Mentioning her name in this text is the same as Leslie's fantasy about historical figures making love. It is Stingo's little rebellion against something that can be read only in one way. Stingo's reading of the Pocahontas story is different from the one offered to most Americans. Leslie does the same. She wants to see historical figures from her point of view, and not from the historiographers' point of view. She wants to read the historical texts differently. The three women he conjures up are Sophie, Maria Hunt and Leslie. Stingo begins to analyze the relationships he had with these girls. Sophie is the Roman Catholic Polish girl, Leslie is Jewish, and Maria Hunt is the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant girl from the South. These are the general notions that can be attached to the girls, but these are the distinguishig features as well. The three girls can be compared to each other and to Stingo, and the comparison can be based on the family background or Jewishness or Catholicism, or any other criterion which is not worse and not better than the other. Comparing the results of analysis and synthesis in Stingo's life, I will add that analysis usually ends in blind alleys. Talking about things over and over again, and analyzing them do not always lead to 48