What is Sophie's role in the Chrysalids?

Answer 1

She is David's best friend after he meets her, and her family is the family that David wishes that he had. He asks to run away with them when they leave. She illustrates the cruelty of the community, and shows David that people are not evil or animals just because they deviate from the norm.

Later, when David and Sophie meet again, she illustrates the hopelessness of being an outcast and the deadly effect that the community David has grown up in has had on so many people... and his powerlessness to stop it. She also serves to illustrate the vast difference between David and all the members of that community... his connection with Rosalind isn't something that he can even stop and consider giving up for Sophie... he is on a completely different level that they can't understand completely, and they definitely can't compete with.