Sophie's World

Hilde is reading about the Renaissance as her mom walks in and asks whether she went to the church party for the last day of school. Hilde is so absorbed in her reading she completely forgot but assures her mother she is enjoying herself in this “magic book” (299). Hilde approaches the section on Berkeley and reads about Alberto and Sophie discussing the possibility that they exist within Hilde’s father’s mind. Hilde becomes frustrated and puts down the binder. She looks in the mirror, and swears she sees someone wink with both eyes. Hilde thinks that as Sophie and Alberto begin to learn about the major’s influence and control, they will reach an “end of the road” (302), much like humanity’s quest for knowledge through philosophy is leading them toward the destruction of the planet. After dinner with her mother, Hilde mentions her crucifix is missing. Her mother swears she knows where it is but goes to look, and it is gone.

Hilde begins reading again. The perspective is now her own, and she looks down on Alberto and Sophie as if with a bird’s eye view. In the writings, Sophie awakens on her birthday confused from the night before. Sophie celebrates her birthday with her mother and opens gifts. Her mother expresses concern for Sophie’s mental health, but Sophie assures her she is fine, and her mother goes to work. A few minutes later, Alberto calls, and Sophie says she may need a break from the course. Alberto insists they must finish by Midsummer Eve when the major arrives back home, telling Sophie it is their “last chance” (305). The two discuss the possibility of being a figment of Hilde’s father’s mind and what that would mean for their own existence and thought. Alberto proposes a way to fight against the major’s control, telling Sophie that stubbornness is key. They formulate a plan to do something of their own free will to “move [themselves] out of the major’s universe” (307) and find out whether they exist independently of him. Alberto is convinced the major only has an idea of the rest of the plot but may not decide each detail until the “moment of creation” (306).

Hilde reads that Sophie receives her first personal card from the major along with another card for Hilde. Hilde’s letter lists the main points Alberto will teach her about the Enlightenment, and then she reads that Sophie is on her way to meet Alberto at the major’s cabin. Sophie and Alberto immediately begin discussing these seven themes of the Enlightenment, including “opposition to authority, rationalism, the Enlightenment movement, cultural optimism, the return to nature, natural religion, [and] human rights” (309). Locke was a key inspiration for many philosophers of the period due to his beliefs about natural rights and inherent human reason, which also led to the abolishment of slavery and the beginnings of feminism (though minute at first). Olympe de Gouges, who was beheaded for her writings on the natural rights of women in France in 1791, stood out to both Sophie and Hilde as the first key female figure of philosophy. The Enlightenment spread through England, France, and Germany in the late 1700s and early 1800s, and it was often referred to as the “Age of Reason” (311). The movement that philosophers led was characterized by a pursuit of making morality, ethics, and religion line up with reason. There was also a movement toward enlightening the entire culture through education, and the desire to protect the innocence of childhood also arose during this time. Enlightenment philosophers furthermore wanted to strip religion “of all the irrational dogmas or doctrines that had got attached to the simple teachings of Jesus during the course of ecclesiastical history” (313). The conclusion was deism, or the belief that God created the world but does not reveal itself through anything else other than nature. Sophie finds a letter for herself inside the cabin from Hilde’s father, which indicates the messages of “Liberty, Equality, and Freedom” (316) of the French Revolution are the same ideals uniting the world today through the UN.

Hilde’s dad calls just after midnight to wish her a happy birthday. He asks how she is finding the story, and Hilde expresses her elation over her present. She remarks on how much time has passed within Sophie’s world compared to the amount of time it has taken Hilde to read about it. She tells her father she feels bad for Sophie, and he says they will talk more about it when he is home. Hilde reads another chapter before bed, this one about Sophie and Alberto discussing philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant was a devout Christian, who wanted to preserve the faith and taught philosophy at university. Kant’s philosophy, though his own, was heavily rooted in the philosophies of the past. He created a balanced view between empiricism and rationalism, claiming that peoples’ understanding of the world came from both experience and reason, not one or the other. Reason allows people to understand their sensory perceptions accurately, and people perceive the world as two “forms of intuition” (322): time and space. Furthermore, time and space are exclusively human conditions that are directly influenced by people’s perception of them. Kant also distinguished between the world as it truly is and the world as individuals perceive it and claimed that people innately apply cause and effect reasoning to everything they experience despite it not really being there. People can never know the objective world, but they can know that time and space will be perceived through the lens of cause and effect. Sophie interrupts Alberto here, having seen a girl across the lake briefly. Alberto does not allow her to be distracted and continues, explaining that due to peoples’ innate reason, they seek causes to things they experience or observe, including themselves and the world. Alberto explains the contradictions in everyday life but more importantly in philosophy, telling Sophie that reason cannot decide between equally probable and equally problematic possibilities—for example, whether existence had a beginning.

Kant argues for “practical postulates” (328) that can occur only through faith: the belief in God, the soul, and humanity’s free will. He believed that, although none of these could be proven or reasoned, they were necessary for the morality of mankind. Suddenly, Sophie and Alberto are taken out of their discussion by a knock at the door; it is a girl who appears to be Red Riding Hood looking for her grandmother’s house. Alberto tries to shoo her, but she gives them a letter before skipping away. Inside are words from Hilde’s father: “If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn’t understand it” (329). In other words, people cannot comprehend their own nature fully. Alberto goes back to his discussion of Kant, moving onto ethics and explaining that Kant believed innate reason led people to have an innate sense of right and wrong, called “moral law” (330). These moral laws apply in all situations, to all people, and are of the utmost importance. Kant takes this further by arguing that people must act as if their actions will “become […] universal law” (330); in other words, to act as they hope others would. The free will Kant speaks of, Alberto explains, can only be exercised through reason. The choices made through reason and morality are a person’s way of exercising this free will. Living by one’s desires and urges is a form of slavery, says Kant. Alberto remarks on the tricks the major is playing on them, from the birthday messages to Little Red Riding Hood. He smiles, enlightening and comforting Sophie as he reminds her that because of this free will and morality through reason, they cannot be fooled by the major’s tricks. Alberto assures her that he is working on a plan, and they sing happy birthday for Sophie and Hilde before Sophie leaves for the day. On her way home, she finds a real-life Winnie the Pooh wandering through the woods. He calls her Alice and takes care to warn her that if she drinks too much out of the bottle, she may end up like him and get stuck in a rabbit hole. Pooh holds out a letter addressed to “Hilde-through-the-Looking-Glass” (336) and hands it to Sophie and then tells her a clue: “To find Hilde-through-the-Looking-Glass you must first find a big looking glass. But that is no easy matter round here” (336). Inside the letter, Hilde’s father regrets that Alberto neglected to teach Sophie about Kant’s League of Nations idea (a union of the nations to achieve peace), which Hilde’s father credits as the seed that eventually became the UN, even calling this goal the purpose of philosophy. Sophie walks home wondering if she should have talked to Winnie the Pooh at all.

Hilde wakes up late from a long night of restless sleep, has breakfast with her mother (who is fixing the motorboat by the dock in time for the major’s arrival), and goes right back to reading. It is the morning of Sophie’s birthday, and her mom invites Joanna and her parents over for some cake. Sophie and Joanna spend the afternoon writing invitations to the “philosophical garden party” (339) being held for Sophie on Midsummer Eve. It includes a hint about the presence of a real philosopher at the party and that the spirit of imagination will be the main affair. Joanna’s parents see the invitations and ask to come too, which Sophie obliges.

On the Tuesday before the weekend of the party, Alberto calls Sophie on the phone. He assures her he will be at the party and explains that he is still formulating his plan by taking advantage of the major’s attention being on Sophie. He points out that the major is letting her have the party on the same day as his return from Lebanon and asks Sophie to meet him at the cabin in the afternoon. Sophie goes to meet him, and Alberto immediately begins discussing Romanticism, “Europe’s last great cultural epoch” (341), telling Sophie they are near the end of a long story. Alberto describes it as a response to the extreme rationalism of the Enlightenment, and it instead put emphasis on emotions and imagination. Artistic genius and self-expression were revered and propped up in society, and art was seen as a way people would blend the boundaries between dreams and reality, which in effect created their own worlds. Romantics were curious about ideas from afar, the supernatural, and “bygone eras” (344). Most of them were university students and saw it as their duty to “experience life—or dream [themselves] away from it" (344). Alberto explains Novalis, a novelist who wrote a story about a man who dreamt he held a blue flower and woke up to find it in his hand. Alberto tells Sophie that Novalis married a 14-year-old girl named Sophie, who died four days after her 15th birthday. Sophie is taken aback when she hears this, but Alberto cannot be sure if it is a coincidence of not. He goes on, telling Sophie that the strong emotions and impoverished lifestyle of many Romantics led to early deaths and suicides. Romanticists’ ideals had roots in Spinoza, Descartes, and Hume, among others, and they believed in pantheism or what Schelling called a “world spirit” (346). Schelling believed the mysteries of the universe existed within everything, included people, and that one could learn to understand these mysteries by looking inward. Culture became something to understand and identify with rather than to fear or reject. Alberto notes two types of Romanticism: Universal, or those “preoccupied with nature, world soul, and artistic genius” (348); and National, or those who were interested in the history, language, and cultures of the people. Each type blends with the other, and both believed in a central concept of organisms that made up things such as language, people, art, and the entire world. Folk songs and tales were collected from around the world, and people began trying to incorporate them into European “art music” (349) (art made by one person at a specific time). Long predating Freud’s suggestions of the unconscious, a philosopher named Fichte suggested that an ego or world soul created the world essentially in a dream and that the world exists inside of that soul. Schelling added that this world soul or God has an unconscious side that remains unknown even to it. Alberto breaks his discussion to discuss the creation of folk tales and stories, hinting to Sophie that she does not need to fear dying today since there are “several more chapters” (350). It is during this discussion Alberto finally says outright that he and Sophie are living within the major’s mind. Then a boy called Aladdin walks by with a message from his genie for Hilde on her birthday. Alberto and Sophie discuss a plan to escape the book they are trapped in, describing himself and Sophie as “shadows in the major’s soul” (353). Alberto takes it further and suggests the major himself may only exist in someone’s mind and that someone else may be writing about him writing about Alberto and Sophie. Sophie then suggests that this author could also be the product of someone’s imagination. Alberto replies that said person is allowing them to have this philosophical conversation to illustrate this very point, and Sophie gets “the feeling that everything is dissolving into mind and spirit” (355). Alberto claims they are really in a philosophy textbook, where all their conversations add up into one big monologue.