Briar Rose
Briar Rose is centered around one woman's Holocaust experience and intermixed with the classic fairy-tale, Sleeping Beauty. Yolen's uses of classic fairy-tale elements such as a prince and the curse of a long sleep are used to connect us to the horrors of the death camp Chelmno. The result is a story that is fresh and shocking as it tears away any of the numbness one may feel for another account of a Holocaust survivor. Suddenly the fairy-tale ideas of rescue and evil are invested with modern connotations.
Jane Yolen takes an interesting tactic with the story. The odd chapters consist specifically of Gemma, the grandmother, telling her version of Sleeping Beauty to her grandchildren, mostly Becca. The even chapters, however, tell of Becca's search, after her grandmother's death, to find out her grandmother's real identity and origin.
It is evident that within the last half of Briar Rose that the alternating chapters merge. This gives rise to a realistation of a symbolic connection between the Holocaust story and Gemma's story of Sleeping Beauty. For example; in Sleeping Beauty, the curse that is bestowed upon the princess, her family and friends mirrors the curse of doom that the Nazis and Gustapo unleashed.. The mist that covers that castle and puts everyone to sleep symbolizes the gassing deaths of millions of people. The castle surrounded with roses that were covered with barbs that were impenetrable symbolized the barbed wire that held the condemned inside the prison camps. By the end of the novel, there is so much symbolism to notice it almost overwhelming. It is as if the symbolism clicks together for the reader at the same time Becca pieces it together for herself.
From the commencement of the novel, the reader receives clues that that the story of Sleeping Beauty is combined with and has an underlying truth of the Holocaust Gemma have been through. "Everyone likes a fairy story because everyone wants things to come right in the end. And even though
Jane Yolen takes an interesting tactic with the story. The odd chapters consist specifically of Gemma, the grandmother, telling her version of Sleeping Beauty to her grandchildren, mostly Becca. The even chapters, however, tell of Becca's search, after her grandmother's death, to find out her grandmother's real identity and origin.
It is evident that within the last half of Briar Rose that the alternating chapters merge. This gives rise to a realistation of a symbolic connection between the Holocaust story and Gemma's story of Sleeping Beauty. For example; in Sleeping Beauty, the curse that is bestowed upon the princess, her family and friends mirrors the curse of doom that the Nazis and Gustapo unleashed.. The mist that covers that castle and puts everyone to sleep symbolizes the gassing deaths of millions of people. The castle surrounded with roses that were covered with barbs that were impenetrable symbolized the barbed wire that held the condemned inside the prison camps. By the end of the novel, there is so much symbolism to notice it almost overwhelming. It is as if the symbolism clicks together for the reader at the same time Becca pieces it together for herself.
From the commencement of the novel, the reader receives clues that that the story of Sleeping Beauty is combined with and has an underlying truth of the Holocaust Gemma have been through. "Everyone likes a fairy story because everyone wants things to come right in the end. And even though