Essay about The Function of the Shawl in Ozick's The Shawl

Lamed Shapiro’s “The Cross” tells the story, in vivid and disturbing detail, of a Russian Jewish man who is attacked in a pogrom, alongside his estranged mother, and is branded on the forehead with a cross by his attacker. Blume Lempel’s “Images on a Blank Canvas” tells another story, in equally vivid and disturbing detail, of a woman mourning the death of her friend, a prostitute who committed suicide. In these two stories, there is one striking similarity: The survivor is portrayed by the non-survivor. In “The Cross,” the Russian Jew is depicted by his mother as the brutally murdered non-survivor of a pogrom. In “Images on a Blank Canvas,” Blume Lempel, the survivor, is depicted by her fallen friend Zosye. Through the depictions of survivors by non-survivors, Shapiro and Lempel are able to unpack the trauma stemming from a pogrom and a suicide and its effects on the survivors.

First, let’s start off with the central symbol Ozick uses, the shawl. The shawl itself carries various meanings to the reader and symbolizes something different to each character. “Rosa, Stella and Magda form a group on the basis of their shared illusion concerning the “magic shawl”” (Gordon 322). One of the first symbols the shawl delivers is life and death. This “magical shawl” has nourished Magda for three days and three nights due to Rosa not being able to produce milk for her. In the story it says “The shawl was Magda’s own baby, her pet, her little sister.” (Ozick 248) which tells us that the shawl has become Magda’s life. The shawl somehow seems to feed her, protect her and keep her alive. “For Magda, this shawl has become everything: mother, food, clothing, and shelter.”(Gordon 322). Even though the shawl in some way kept Magda alive and it symbolized her life, unfortunately at the end it became the symbol of her death. “Even though the shawl did not literally wrap her in death, the shawl that nourished her and protected her in life was the same cloth that brought about her death” says (Jones 1) Stella started getting cold and took the shawl away from Magda which became the reason of Magda’s death. She then started howling after noticing she didn’t have her shawl which made a Nazi officer notice her existence and caused her death.

In this scene from Night, Elie Wiesel and his inmates are rushed out of their barracks at 5 A.M, forced to strip, and ordered run, naked and cold. Elie unveils that enslavement strips one of their personal identity leading to dehumanization. Wiesel observes “Mountains of prison garb” in the concentration camp. The use of hyperbole, exaggerating the amount of prison garb, emphasizes the high density of individuals in the camp. They are forced to wear the same uniform clothing, illustrating the destruction of individuality. The use of the word “prison” shows the birth of subjection. Wiesel also uses syntax to demonstrate the conformity of the camp, recalling the daily routine “Disinfection. Everybody soaked in it. Then came a hot shower. All

Why is being a fancy dancer such a big deal? This is the dance of the Native American Fancy Shawl. This dance interests a lot of people because many people do not believe that Natives exist, never have seen one dance, or even a fancy dancer dance before. “ This style of dance is the newest style of Native American dance there is.” In the early 1920’s,  Native American women started to dance the Fancy Shawl dance which was very uncommon. In the 1950’s, women became more aware of the Fancy Shawl dance and started to dance the dance more in the Southern Tribes (“The Evolving Beauty of the Fancy Shawl Dance”). Most of the dances that the Natives Americans dances started from the men, due to the women wanting to dance like the men did. When started

In the short story “Marigolds”, the author, Eugenia Collier, uses several key events throughout the short story to represent the unseen cage that the main character, Lizabeth, is trapped in, and ultimately breaks. The story is set in a shanty town, likely taking place during the Great Depression. Throughout the story, Lizabeth goes through a difficult stage in life, a stage in which she is in conflict about whether she wants to be a carefree, innocent child, or an educated, compassionate adult. The climax of the story, when Lizabeth tears and rips up Miss Lottie’s marigolds, is such an emotional moment for Lizabeth that she finally completes her transition to adulthood, understands her endless cycle of poverty, and breaks the final bar of the cage.

In the short story The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick, we are introduced to three characters who are facing death surrounding them in a concentration camp. We are introduced to Rosa, Stella and Magda. Rosa is the mother in the story of Magda, Magda is a young baby whose odds of survival is not very good. We are also introduced to Stella, who is a demon in the mind of Rosa. Stella represents the life that Rosa once had, one where she did not have a child and did not have to put someone’s life before them self. Stella appears to have all the human features, have emotions and has human flaws, but she taunts Rosa while she is in the concentration camp. Stella also brings Rosa something that she could not do herself, the feeling of relief of a horrible

The inmates eat soup while in the camp. When the time comes for them to get their bowls filled, Levi professes they “have an animal hurry” to consume their food (Survival 69). This metaphor suggests the men’s animalistic behavior due to their severe thirst and hunger. The concept of dehumanization carried out by the Schutzstaffel primarily targets the prisoners‘ “identity” and “community” (“Dehumanization”). Each man’s struggle to survive in Auschwitz depends on their principal focus of themselves. They can “no longer elicit compassion or other moral responses”, every man endures on his own, and they cannot think of others. Ironically, waiting around to pass time satisfies the inmates; “ [they] are always happy to wait” (Survival 104). Levi rationalizes their content when Alex tells them to wait and says they have “the complete obtuse inertia of spiders in old webs” (Survival 104). He compares his Kommando to spiders, as they sit lifelessly, trapped in an abandoned labyrinth. The action of waiting brings the men solace, for once, as “time moves smoothly” and they have no duties to complete (Survival 104).

The major theme of the book is shown through the bonds of friendship and how in the most of unlikely circumstances friendship can survive and exist between people possessing an extensive and most restrictive division. A second theme is the evil and the intolerance which existed around these times of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust, as seen by the Germans having the Jews in the concentration camp. And the third theme is the curiosity and innocence of Bruno, Shmuel and

She starts to push away from him and he releases her. Slowly she walks into the minute apartment. It never seemed that small to her until her sister arrived, bringing back memories of belle Reve, and it's white columns and rolling acres, but this modest apartment is no Belle Reve, and the French Quarter is lacking in rolling acres. The room is dark, and she can only be seen under the dingy light of the naked bulb. The shadows it casts only highlight Blanche's absence in the now quiet apartment. Directly under the light, Stella turns to face

In the first shawl by Cynthia Ozick, the author sets the setting during the Holocaust. Ozick started to describe the characters, like " the Star sewed into Rosa's coat." She later she reveals that the main characters were Jews. Rosa, a mother of two, Stella and Magda, Magda was the baby. Rosa faces many dilemmas throughout the whole story. All she could think about is how can she keep Magda safe because Magda does not look like other Jews. Rosa describes Magda's

In the period of 1942-1945 eight jewish people had gone into hiding due to the Holocaust. There was nearly 11 million people that died during the holocaust, and 6 million of them were jews. But the eight people struggling to survive in the most brutal conditions. During the two year period the characters moods change and relationships change throughout the unsparing period.

Cynthia Ozick’s story “The Shawl” is told in a way were the readers feel hopelessness and despair. The characters are put in a situation so hopeless there’s no way that they can escape. This text at first begins with confusion, however as you read more you start to put the pieces to gether like a puzzle. Magda the only character who thrives in the story, and still she becomes a victim of the harsh environment around her. At it’s core this text tells of how you can be thrown in an concentration camp, treated as a lower human being, just because your not the perfect white color, and starved to near death, but no amount of oppression could drain the humanity you have inside. Although Stella is a counter to this because she is bitter, and envious

Since Gertrude had nothing else to do but fret, she decided she was going to try and help with the other orphaned children. She’d keep them company when they cried over the loss of their parents and siblings, and she’d distract them to keep their minds off the horrific tragedy. Then one day, she met a little girl named Rosaline. Rosaline was about five or six, though nobody knew for sure. They actually didn’t even know her actual name. The tenement had given her the name so that the adults could keep track of her, because it was too hard to refer to her as the “orphaned little girl”. She wouldn’t speak, and she stared blankly at a wall for most of the day. Gertrude decided to spark a conversation with the girl and try to

The shawl symbolizes the necessity for illusion as defense against struggle in uncomfortable circumstances. In “The Shawl”, Ozick highlights the process in which said illusion can easily shift into a dehumanizing delusion. The characters share their perception of the “magic shawl” (517) as a source of hope and comfort. For Magda, it makes her “dumb” (518) to the reality she lives in. Although the infant’s use of the shawl is understandable, Stella and Rosa’s belief in it is a sign of desperation, regression, and the breakdown of rationality in the face of extreme deprivation and loss. Stella suffers inadequate mothering and as a result desires the shawls powers to revert to infancy as an escape from responsibility. For Rosa, the shawl acts as an illusionary umbilical cord between her child. Once cut, she is stripped of her motherhood and is forced into a delusionary sense of helplessness. In dire

While all of the residents in the nearby village know Magda is a gypsy, they keep it quiet, because the gypsies, like the Jews, are persecuted by the Germans. She turns out to be a good witch, unlike the earlier fairy tale. That she was taken away after helping the children to flee may be evidence that life, for an ageing person, must have taken on a different importance at that time than it might in other times. Again this may be a reminder that during the holocaust older people, who were considered to be of less use overall, and were automatically annihilated. This book touches on the fact that the more useful a person was the greater their chances of survival.