An Introduction to Sophie's World

Sophie's world is a novel about a young girl, Sophie Amundsen, growing up in Norway. She's a normal school girl with a lot of time on her hands. Her dad's out of the country and her mom works late, so she spends a lot of time by herself and with her cat. Every day she checks the mail when she gets home, and all is typical until one day she finds a letter addressed to her. It's very simple; all is says is “Who are you?” This opens the door for Sophie to open her mind and really think. She's young and has never really had to think about who she is. Do any of us really know who we are? Unless someone asks us that very question, most people don't take the time to do some serious self reflection. Sophie continues to get letters from this stranger, asking her more questions and explaining philosophy to her. He explains how people get comfortable with where they are in life and what they think they know. The novel wastes no time with jumping straight into some major philosophical ideas. Sophie grapples with the idea of life and death and how no one knows what it's like to be dead and how you don't ever truly appreciate your life until you realize how soon it will be gone. It's a two sided coin, where you don't realize what you have until it's gone. The man also encouraged Sophie to think about where the world came from. She grappled with the question for a long time, without coming to a concrete answer. She kept coming back to the same point and the question frustrated her in its circularness. The sender of the letters makes her think about what the most important things in life are. He explains how they're different for everyone, but philosophers think that there is always something that someone needs. Throughout the novel there's a theme of questioning what you think you know and self discover. By reading about a girl that has to question everything she thought she knew, it causes the reader to have to do the same.

Everything Sophie learns can be applied to the real world. Philosophy is universal. These aren’t rules, they’re ideas; questions. Everyone can ask more about the world and learn more about it and themselves. The philosopher asked Sophie about where she thought the universe came from, and she had no answer. Neither do I. That question is something that I think a lot about. I don’t believe in a god, so I turn to science for my answer. However, there is no scientific answer. The big bang created our universe, but what was there before it? There’s no answer to that, and it’s something that drives me crazy. There has to be something, but my brain simply can’t comprehend what. Sophie dealt with many of these same issues and we both want to know: what comes before nothing? This book applies to everyone everywhere. It makes you think about questions that you might not otherwise think about. It pushes the reader to think about their own life and their own beliefs. It teaches you about the different philosophers in a way that’s not overbearing. Something that’s talked about a lot in the novel is how children mind’s are more open and how they question more. The situation was posed that if a little boy’s father got up and started flying he;d look at him with wonder, while his mother might faint. Kids don’t get know what’s “normal” or not, so their minds are more open. This novel emphasizes the point that you should encourage your children to question the world around them, and adults should stretch their their thinking as well.