The Shawl

                Motherhood plays an important role in The Shawl, by Cynthia Ozick.  Woven throughout the story is the reoccurring theme of Rosa’s identity, found within the unbreakable bond that is formed between mother and child.  Rosa’s defines her “present life” as her time spent in Jewish ghettos, being marched to and housed in various concentration camps, and most importantly her time spent nurturing her young child Magda, under extremely harsh circumstances.  “Rosa gave almost all her food to Magda, Stella gave nothing; Stella was ravenous, a growing child herself.  Stella did not menstruate.  Rosa did not menstruate.  Rosa was ravenous, but also not: she learned from Magda how to drink the taste of a finger in one’s mouth.”(pg 5)  Rosa’s literary role as a mother is like that of any other, she finds herself sacrificing everything to provide for her child.  She strives to give nourishment where none can be found, tries to protect her daily from being seen by the S.S. soldiers who will take her life, and vows to create a life for her outside of the camp when the war is over.  Sadly, Rosa is unable to make the ultimate sacrifice for her child, giving her own life, which haunts her for the next forty years.  Over time, Rosa is not able to move on from the death of her beloved daughter.  Instead, she continues to live a life of pain, masked by lengthy letters creating an imaginary life her daughter never lived.  “Rosa wanted to explain to Magda still more about the jugs and the drawings on the walls, and the old things in the store, things that nobody cared about, broken chairs with carved birds, long strings of glass beads, gloves and wormy muffs abandoned in drawers.” (pg 69)  Although Rosas survival did not depend on the physical existence of Magda, the emotional and mental relationship she kept sustained her mother-like role for the remainder of her life.