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Use Of Allegory In Jane Yolen's Briar Rose

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The award winning novel Briar Rose (1992) by Jane Yolen, is a story about Becca Berlin growing up with her sisters and Grandmother Gemma and her quest to uncover the mystery of Gemma’s Jewish past in Poland, during World War II. This story influences the readers’ understanding of history, because it teaches the reader about the Holocaust and the experiences of the Polish and Jewish people during the period of Nazi Germany. The novel Briar Rose is influenced by the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, also known as Briar Rose. This novel may be fantasy fiction, but it still conveys a great deal of truth and addresses the issues of good and evil, suffering and survival and life and death.
Briar Rose influences the readers’ knowledge of history, by addressing …show more content…

There is a second story other that the one actually being told. Gemma’s version of the fairy tale Briar Rose and Becca’s search for her grandmother’s past is the story being told. The second underlying story is Gemma’s life story about surviving the Holocaust in the Chelmno extermination camp and her rescue and escape to America. Becca eventually recognizes that Gemma’s version of Briar Rose, is a metaphor for Gemma’s life. Gemma is Briar Rose. Gemma has adapted the story of Sleeping Beauty to fit her own life in the concentration …show more content…

Other novels have focused on the Jewish genocide and focused on the well -known extermination camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Briar Rose however is different and doesn’t just focus on Jewish genocide, but more on that of the Polish and focuses on the less well-known Polish town of Chelmno, in order to bring the terrors of Chelmno to the attention of readers around the world. Yolen was inspired to write the novel after watching a documentary called Shoah, in which the concentration camp of Chelmno was described. It was a camp in a castle, with barbed wire fences and where innocent men, women and children were gassed and there was no one to give them the” kiss of life” to rescue them for their happy ever after. It reminded her of Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose) in a horrible way, where there was a castle, thorns and briar and an evil fairy (Hitler’s army) who cast a spell (gas mist) that put people to sleep (for 100 years which is like forever) and a kiss (mouth to mouth resuscitation) that broke the spell (gassing) and a happy ever after (survival, rescue, romance and a new

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