Ozicks The Shawl: Faith, Voice, and Free Will - Book Report/Review Example

Cody Halvorson Fankhauser English 1102 17 June Ozick’s “The Shawl Faith, Voice, and Free Will “The Shawl,” ashort story by Cynthia Ozick, attempts to relive the psychological trauma of the Holocaust. Ozick does not have firsthand experience of the Holocaust, but through Rosa, she remembers the hardships of the Jews and other victims of the Nazi concentration camps. Remembering history is important, because forgetting can result to repetition of these horrible crimes against humanity. This paper analyzes what the story means to Jews through exploring its symbols, images, plot, and characters. “The Shawl” stands for the synecdoche of the Holocaust and argues that despite the absence of voice and free will, Judaism continues to survive and prosper, because of people’s faith in God. The shawl serves multiple functional and spiritual purposes, which is attested through faith. With faith nothing is impossible. The shawl magically nourishes Magda, when it turns into a “milk of linen” (Ozick 17). This can be paralleled to the many times that God fed His people, so that they would not die from hunger. When Ozick says that Magda’s mouth, which suckled the shawl, smelled like “cinnamon and almonds,” Berger argues that this imagery implies the “contents of the spice box (besamim) whose aroma is inhaled by Jews during the havdalah ceremony, which signifies the end of Shabbat (the Sabbath)...” For Magda, the shawl is also her “sister” (Ozick 18). Moreover, it protects her from the eyes of the German soldiers too. Berger compares the shawl to a “tallith” (prayer shawl).” The shawl hides Magda from the German troops and even from the likes of Stella, who Rosa knew “was waiting formed to die so she could put her teeth into the little thighs” (Ozick 19). Berger also argues that the spiritual protection that the shawl provides extends to Rosa, because it keeps her from screaming, when she sees Magda thrown to the electric fence. Without the shawl, troops will hear her screaming and shoot her on the spot. The shawl suppresses her voice, but extends her life. “The Shawl” stands for the synecdoche of the Holocaust. Rabin argues that the story is a “synecdoche” to the suffering of the Jews. The plot contains a clear beginning, climax, and ending, where suffering intensifies until the end, and in different ways, the characters endured, even when, sometimes, their spirits did not. Stella, for instance, does not recover from the coldness of the Holocaust. After being the cause of Magda’s death, because she took the shawl away, Ozick describes Stella as being “cold” all the time: “The cold went into her heart” (Ozick 22). Coldness is her way of coping with the Holocaust. It is not a healthy way, but it helped her detach herself from her bleak conditions. The plot of the story encapsulates the inhumanity of the Holocaust. It starts with the death march. Rosa is focused on her infant daughter, Magda, whom she wraps in “a magic shawl [which] could nourish an infant for three days and three nights” (Ozick 24). In the concentration camp, Magda stays securely silent and undetectable until Stella takes the shawl for herself. As a result, Magda feels bereft without the shawl and looks for it. She walks away from her mother saying “Maaa,” her first attempt in speaking. For Magda, the shawl is like her mother too. Rosa feels happy that Magda seems to be speaking and is not mute after all, but soon realizes the impending death of her daughter. Rabin asserts that Magda’s voice represents hope and autonomy: “Magdas finding her voice is redemptive, even as it brings about her death.” Rosa’s silence, as she stifles her screams, will soon give way to her finding of her own voice later on. She sees Magda being carried away and when she is hurled to the electrified fence of the camp: “She looked like a butterfly touching a silver vine” (Ozick 27). Butterflies represent freedom. It seems that at death, Magda is freed from further suffering. This is especially true when the story suggests that Germans raped Rosa. She says: “You could think she was one of their babies” (Ozick 26). By saying the word “their,” she refers to the Germans and their Aryan race. This hints that Magda is possibly a child of a German soldier. Ironically, she dies from the cruelty of a German soldier too. This man cannot recognize his own race from this child, because he has become too inhuman to see their similarities. Judaism continues to survive and prosper, because of people’s faith in God. Rosa swallowed the shawl until “…until she was swallowing up the wolfs screech and tasting the cinnamon and almond depth of Magda’s saliva, and Rosa drank Magda’s shawl until it dried” (Ozick 11). The wolf stands for the Nazis. They are the hunters that preyed on the Jews. By mentioning “cinnamon and almond,” Ozick reminds the readers of the redemption that faith provides. When it is dried up, it means that something fills Rosa. The shawl fills her with hope. She might not have survived her daughter, but she survives the Holocaust. This gives her the opportunity to live a new and better life, the life that Magda never lives for herself. “The Shawl” shows that Rosa will survive better than Stella, because she signifies the butterfly that can fly free from her survivor guilt and bitterness. She can fly freely, as long she accepts the past and regains her faith in God. “The Shawl” represents the synecdoche of the Holocaust. It is a short story that summarizes the brutality of inhumanity. This paper argues that despite the dearth of voice and free will during this most trying time, Judaism continues to survive and flourish, because of people’s faith in God. Those who lose their faith also lose their direction, and find no meaning in their suffering. Despite of millions of senseless deaths, survivors have to go on, to move on. They owe their new life to the dead, to themselves, and to God who spared them. They must walk under God’s shawl. God is the ultimate shawl for all. Rosa’s linen shawl keeps Magda alive by hiding her from soldiers, and it more magically allows Magda to suckle it. Stella indirectly causes Magda’s death after taking the shawl from her, leading the toddler to be seen by a German soldier as she goes outside. When Magda is murdered, Rosa stifles her own scream with the shawl, knowing she could be killed if she attracts attention. Years later, Rosa uses the shawl to trigger her fantasies that Magda is alive. Puffer Rothenberg argues in his article that the shawl could also be linked to the traditional Jewish tallit, a prayer shawl worn as a symbol of faith. This argument shows the strong belief of the Jewish people in their faith and culture even in trying times. Rosa is so proud of her beautiful, literary Polish and speaks no Yiddish but broken English. She looks down on Simon Persky because he speaks and reads Yiddish. This shows her prejudice against Jews. As a young girl she thought observant Jews in Warsaw were superstitious and backward. She could not understand why the Nazis counted her family among them. In spite of her horrific victimization as a Jew, she feels separated from them. At the same time, s he did not understand how her niece, Stella, and other Jews could be indifferent to or ignorant of the Holocaust. From the story we understand that “they were in a place without pity.” Rosa could be any mother who wants to keep her baby alive against impossible odds. This is a story about the oppression of women: there is no mention of Magdas father, and the only male referred to is the guard who murders Magda, a faceless monster described in terms of “a helmet, a black body like a domino and a pair of black boots.”(Ozick 12) The themes of oral deprivation, inadequate mothering and the desire to revert to infancy are established in this story: Rosa is defined as a mother with sore breasts who can no longer adequately feed her child. Magda is suffering from forced weaning. Stella too is starving “she has been turned into a thing resembling sticks or the skeleton of a chicken” (Ozick 13). Stella, a teenager, longs to revert to infancy, symbolized by her desire to be wrapped in and mothered by the shawl that protects Magda. For Magda, the shawl had become everything: mother, food, clothing, and shelter. This is described in the story “She watched like a tiger. She guarded her shawl. No one could touch it; only Rosa could touch it. Stella was not allowed” (Ozick 28). The shawl was Magdas own baby, her pet, her little sister. She tangled herself up in it and sucked on one of the corners when she wanted to be very still (Ozick 29). After Stella snatches the shawl from Magda, Rosa sees Magda toddling into the sunlight, howling for the lost shawl, screaming “Maaaa—.” This was the first sound she had made since Rosas milk dried up, and the only word she spoke in the story. This is a cry for both the shawl and her mother. To her the two are synonymous. “Magda was going to die, and at the same time a fearful joy ran in Rosas two palms” (Ozick 30). The joy came from the realization that her baby could speak. The fear from the ironic fact that the noise would have doomed Magda to death, her continued silence would have saved her. Rosa then finds the shawl and tears it away from Stella. Then, under the influence of “voices” she imagines she hears in the electrified fence (this could be seen as a sign of her derangement). Rosa runs outside and waves the shawl like a flag to attract Magdas attention. The shawl is now a banner representing life and faith and hope. But this is an effort too late: a guard had already seized the baby, carried her off, and abruptly tossed her to her death against the electric fence. The murder is described in beautiful metaphors to intensify both the suspense and the horror. Magdas arms reach out to the shawl and to her mother, but she recedes into the distance, becoming a “speck” and “no bigger than a moth.” When she is hurled at the fence, she turns into a floating angel: “All at once Magda was swimming through the air. The whole of Magda traveled through loftiness. She looked like a butterfly touching a silver vine.” Through these metaphors, the moment of death became a moment of magical transfiguration. As she watches her baby murdered, there is nothing further Rosa could do without endangering her life. The voices of the fence urge her to run to Magda. But “Rosas instinct for self-preservation overcomes both her maternal instincts and any heroic urges she may have had. By stifling her screams, the shawl became a means of survival for Rosa, as it had been for Magda. And the shawl nurtures her, filling her mouth, just as it had done for Magda. As the shawl had become a surrogate mother for Magda, it became a surrogate baby for Rosa. “Magdas cinnamon and almond breath has permeated her shawl becoming synonymous with her spirit.”(Ozick 33) In drinking the shawl, she is devouring her dead infant this however is symbolic cannibalism, unlike the butchery of the death camps or the lethal selfishness of Stella. Rosa is attempting to reincorporate Magda in order to mourn her. Works Cited Griffin, Tery. An overview of The Shawl". New York: Cengage Learning, 1989.Print Maureen, Puffer Rothenberg. "The Shawl." Masterplots, Fourth Edition (November 2010): , p1-2.Print Gordon, Andrew. "Cynthia Ozicks The Shawl and the Transitional Object." Literature and Psychology 1 & 2 (1994): 1-9. Rpt. in Short Stories for Students. Ed. Kathleen Wilson. Vol. 3. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Literature Resource Center. Web. 20 June 2012.http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.gpc.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420017224&v=2.1&u=clar34424&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w Berger, Alan L. “Shawl.” In Cronin, Gloria L., and Alan L. Berger, eds. Encyclopedia of Jewish-American Literature. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2009. Blooms Literary Reference Online. Web. 17 June 2012. . Ozick, Cynthia. The Shawl. New York: Vintage International, 1990. Print. Rabin, Jessica. “The Shawl.” In Werlock, Abby H. P., ed. The Facts on File Companion to the American Novel. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2006. Blooms Literary Reference Online. Web. 17 June 2012. . Works Cited Read More