Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl" and Idolatry
Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl:
Reasons for Idolatry
“The Shawl,” by Cynthia Ozick, is a short story about a mother who desperately tries to save her infant daughter. The book also consists of a second short story, called “Rosa,” about the same mother, thirty years later, who dreams of a world where her daughter is still alive. In the first short story, “The Shawl,” Rosa and her daughter, Magda, are being marched with a young, starving girl, named Stella, to a concentration camp, during the Holocaust. The only thing that the characters believe keeps them alive is the shawl. The shawl is seen as a magic idol and each character needs it for a different psychological reason. The first main character we see who needs the shawl is Magda. The little infant whose mother’s milk runs dry uses the shawl to satisfy her thirst,
“Without complaining, Magda relinquished Rosa’s teats, first the left, then the right; both were cracked, not a sniff of milk. The duct-crevice extinct, a dead volcano, blind eye, chill hole, so Magda took the corner of the shawl and milked it instead. She sucked and sucked, flooding the threads with wetness. The shawl’s good flavor, milk of linen” (Shawl 4-5).
Magda has made the shawl the source of her food. It is her shelter, her mother and her comfort. For Magda, Rosa has become nothing but a “walking cradle.” It is obvious why Magda needs the shawl so badly, but why do the other two characters feel a need to idolize it as well? After Stella steals the shawl from Magda, she falls asleep beneath it in the barracks. Magda used the shawl to conjure up much needed motherly qualities and so does Stella. Stella is Rosa’s niece. Her mother is not mentioned, which leads me to believe she is motherless. Along with a probable yearning for her mother, Stella is overcome with jealousy of the motherly care that is given to Magda, from Rosa:
Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of hell. How they walked on the roads together, Rosa
Reasons for Idolatry
“The Shawl,” by Cynthia Ozick, is a short story about a mother who desperately tries to save her infant daughter. The book also consists of a second short story, called “Rosa,” about the same mother, thirty years later, who dreams of a world where her daughter is still alive. In the first short story, “The Shawl,” Rosa and her daughter, Magda, are being marched with a young, starving girl, named Stella, to a concentration camp, during the Holocaust. The only thing that the characters believe keeps them alive is the shawl. The shawl is seen as a magic idol and each character needs it for a different psychological reason. The first main character we see who needs the shawl is Magda. The little infant whose mother’s milk runs dry uses the shawl to satisfy her thirst,
“Without complaining, Magda relinquished Rosa’s teats, first the left, then the right; both were cracked, not a sniff of milk. The duct-crevice extinct, a dead volcano, blind eye, chill hole, so Magda took the corner of the shawl and milked it instead. She sucked and sucked, flooding the threads with wetness. The shawl’s good flavor, milk of linen” (Shawl 4-5).
Magda has made the shawl the source of her food. It is her shelter, her mother and her comfort. For Magda, Rosa has become nothing but a “walking cradle.” It is obvious why Magda needs the shawl so badly, but why do the other two characters feel a need to idolize it as well? After Stella steals the shawl from Magda, she falls asleep beneath it in the barracks. Magda used the shawl to conjure up much needed motherly qualities and so does Stella. Stella is Rosa’s niece. Her mother is not mentioned, which leads me to believe she is motherless. Along with a probable yearning for her mother, Stella is overcome with jealousy of the motherly care that is given to Magda, from Rosa:
Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of hell. How they walked on the roads together, Rosa
Cited: Gordon, Andrew. “Cynthia Ozick’s ‘The Shawl’ and the Transitional Object.” Literature & Psychology. 40.1/2 (1994): 1-9. Print. Kakutani, Michiko. “Cynthia Ozick on the Holocaust, Idolatry, and Loss.” The New York Times, September 5, 1989, p. C17; 376 words. Print. Prose, Francine. “Idolatry In Miami.” New York Times. September 10 (1989) 1,209 words. Print. Scafford, Barbara. “Nature’s Silent Scream: A Contemporary on Cynthia Ozick’s ‘The Shawl’.” Critique. 31.1 (1989) 11-15. Print