the shawl

Reading the beginning of “The Shawl” was heart wrenching. To hear the reality of what people actually went through during the concentration camps is surreal. I think its awful how malnourished the prisoners were in the camps. Rosa couldn’t even produce enough milk to feed her baby Magda. In the beginning of the book we see a vivid picture of Rosa and how food deprived she was and how she is giving any source of food or nutrients to Magda. Ozick describes Rosa’s knees as tumors on sticks and she also she described her as “someone who is already a floating angel.” Hearing the descriptions of what went on in the concentration camps is so scary and sad and it really hits home for me and a lot of people I know because we all have had family that had relatives or knew someone in the concentration camps.

I think that it is interesting how the novella started off with such vivid descriptions of what was going on in the concentration camps. I think this defiantly drew me into the book and made me want to closely read and to paint the vivid descriptions of Rosa, Magda, and Stella. I got sort of confused after the first chapter when it went into Rosa’s chapter. In Rosa’s chapter it started off with Rosa smashing up her own store and moving to Miami. I am confused about how she ended up where she is now. I believe that is important that we see that Rosa writes letters in English to Stella. I am not sure as to why she is writing in English when she and Stella were both Polish. I think Rosa defiantly has dramatic affects from the concentration camps such as reciting her name in “application form”. I think the reason she destroyed her store comes from post dramatic stress. There is no way one can go to a concentration camp and not be affected for life.