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Summary Of The Shawl

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Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl describes how the hellish, cold, and inescapable setting of a march toward a Nazi concentration camp as well as the cesspool itself degrade its victims to a point of not spiritual, communal resistance but pure hopelessness and moral corruption. The story juxtaposes two Jewish captives in order to view the different effects the setting has on their humanity, or the coalescence of one’s compassion, human value, and capacity to love. Rosa, the self-sacrificing mother of Magda, is the protagonist while Stella, Rosa’s envious niece, is the antagonist. In their interactions with the baby Magda, Ozick frequently characterizes Rosa as humane and loving and Stella as ravenous and cold-hearted, invoking the idea that, through her love, Rosa is able to …show more content…

Throughout the entire story, there is no mention of Magda’s father, Rosa’s family, or anybody else Rosa could possibly love, other than Stella; however, Rosa seems to hate Stella: she felt no pity for her, she was sure that “Stella was waiting for Magda to die so she could put her teeth into the little thighs,” and she “saw that Stella’s heart was cold.” Rosa felt no compassion for her own distrustful and cold-hearted niece, for several possible reasons, including that Stella was not her biological daughter or that Stella was passed the age of 12, which is the age when Jewish women are considered to be adults. However, the most likely explanation is that because Stella, who is jealous and selfish, does not partake in Rosa’s sacrificial love for Magda, Rosa only fundamentally loves

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