"The Shawl" Essay Example
AP English
“The Shawl”
November 2013
“The Shawl”
“The Shawl,” by Cynthia Ozick, is a short story that describes the fight for survival of a woman, an adolescent, and a child. Magda, only 15 months old, is accompanied by her teenage sister Stella, and her loving mother Rosa while living in a concentration camp during World War II. Rosa is unable to breast-feed her child, which makes Magda turn to the shawl in order to fulfill the maternal figure she’s missing; Rosa also suffers the loss of a child during this journey while Stella, the eldest daughter, becomes stronger and more voracious in order to subsist. The description of the setting, and the use of both imagery and figurative language help to fully describe the sentiments and emotions in Cynthia Ozick’s story. A concentration camp in spring, the setting of such tragedy, an environment surrounded by a fence in which at the other side grows flowers and rain is abundant; but inside the fence it’s misery and pain. “On the other side of the steel fence, far away, there were green meadows speckled with dandelions and deep-colored violets; beyond them, even farther, innocent tiger lilies, tall, lifting their orange bonnets. In the barracks they spoke of “flowers,” of “rain”: excrement, thick turd-braids, and the slow stinking maroon waterfall that slunk down from the upper bunks.” Page 4 lines 6-9, fully describe the comparison of the type of scenery and life in and out the fence. The setting in the short story is presented as an antagonist because of the influence it gives in the character’s lives; ironically, the story develops during spring, which is considered the season of birth and life, and as a consequence of the holocaust we find death, becoming the opposite of the rebirth. The setting can also be considered as an antagonist for the characters; “They were in a place without pity,” Neither Rosa, Stella or Magda could control what their destiny held for them; the situation they’re in makes life and
“The Shawl”
November 2013
“The Shawl”
“The Shawl,” by Cynthia Ozick, is a short story that describes the fight for survival of a woman, an adolescent, and a child. Magda, only 15 months old, is accompanied by her teenage sister Stella, and her loving mother Rosa while living in a concentration camp during World War II. Rosa is unable to breast-feed her child, which makes Magda turn to the shawl in order to fulfill the maternal figure she’s missing; Rosa also suffers the loss of a child during this journey while Stella, the eldest daughter, becomes stronger and more voracious in order to subsist. The description of the setting, and the use of both imagery and figurative language help to fully describe the sentiments and emotions in Cynthia Ozick’s story. A concentration camp in spring, the setting of such tragedy, an environment surrounded by a fence in which at the other side grows flowers and rain is abundant; but inside the fence it’s misery and pain. “On the other side of the steel fence, far away, there were green meadows speckled with dandelions and deep-colored violets; beyond them, even farther, innocent tiger lilies, tall, lifting their orange bonnets. In the barracks they spoke of “flowers,” of “rain”: excrement, thick turd-braids, and the slow stinking maroon waterfall that slunk down from the upper bunks.” Page 4 lines 6-9, fully describe the comparison of the type of scenery and life in and out the fence. The setting in the short story is presented as an antagonist because of the influence it gives in the character’s lives; ironically, the story develops during spring, which is considered the season of birth and life, and as a consequence of the holocaust we find death, becoming the opposite of the rebirth. The setting can also be considered as an antagonist for the characters; “They were in a place without pity,” Neither Rosa, Stella or Magda could control what their destiny held for them; the situation they’re in makes life and