“I am Sophie Amundsen,” Sophie tells herself the first time she receives a letter from the philosopher. Before that day that’s who she could confidently tell anyone that asked. She was Sophie, just an ordinary fourteen year old girl. But as we later learn Sophie is only a product of Albert Knag’s imagination. Sophie is unaware of this fact and believes she has free will but later with the help of the philosophy course she begins to understand how little free will she really has.
Knowledge plays a huge factor in Sophie’s understanding of her world and herself. Everything she has ever known had been fed to her by Albert Knag. Without the aid of knowledge she may never have stumbled upon the truth and tried to get freedom.
She could have easily lived her life oblivious to what was really going on and it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but knowledge helped her recognize that there was more to her world then she had once believed. This is similar to the book 1984, by George Orwell. Winston, the main character, could have easily accepted his life the way it was and that there was nothing he could do to change it, which he probably would have if he hadn’t worked at the Ministry of Truth. The Ministry of Truth was responsible for making sure that anything unfavorable toward the government was erased. By working there Winston gained knowledge that he might never have otherwise and because of that he knows that there is a possibility of a better world.
Knowledge is also a major theme in another book, The Giver by Lois Lowry. The main character, Jonas, becomes the Receiver of Memory. Because of his job he gets to see and experience things that everyone else around him does not. This knowledge is what fuels his desire for freedom. Sophie, Winston and Jonas have that in common, they all have knowledge that the other characters in their stories lack. With this knowledge they decide that it is no longer possible for them to go back to their old life. Knowledge is what guides them in their search for freedom.
As Francis Bacon said, “knowledge is power.” Knowledge gave Sophie control over her situation and power to overcome it. Most people could live the rest of their lives blissfully unaware that all their actions are controlled by a higher being but Sophie is different. She and Alberto use the knowledge they’ve gained from philosophy to turn the tables on Albert, to the point where they know about his and Hilde’s reality, but Sophie’s and Alberto’s is now hidden. Gaarder illustrates, using Sophie’s World, the value of knowledge. Philosophy is nothing without knowledge and without knowledge a human being is no different from any other specie in the world.
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