Motherly Love In Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl

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Recommended: Symbolism in the short story the shawl by cynthia ozick

Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl describes how the hellish, cold, and inescapable setting of a march toward a Nazi concentration camp as well as the cesspool itself degrade its victims to a point of not spiritual, communal resistance but pure hopelessness and moral corruption. The story juxtaposes two Jewish captives in order to view the different effects the setting has on their humanity, or the coalescence of one’s compassion and human value; Rosa, the self-sacrificing mother of Magda, is considered the protagonist while Stella, Rosa’s envious niece, the antagonist. In their interactions with the baby Magda, Ozick frequently characterizes Rosa as humane and loving while Stella as ravenous and cold-hearted, invoking the idea that, through her love, …show more content…

Throughout the entire story, there is no mention of Magda’s father, Rosa’s family, or anybody else Rosa could possibly love, other than Stella. However, Rosa seems to Hate Stella: she felt no pity for her, she was sure that “Stella was waiting for Magda to die so she could put her teeth into the little thighs,” and she “saw that Stella’s heart was cold.” Rosa felt no compassion for her own distrustful and cold-hearted niece, for several possible reasons, including that Stella is not her biological daughter or that Stella is passed the age of 12, which is the age where Jewish women are considered to be adults. However, it is most likely that because Stella does not share with Rosa in sacrificial love for Magda as seen by her jealousy and ungenerosity that Rosa does not love Stella in any way like she loves Magda. With Magda, Rosa constantly makes her decisions with the ultimate goal of sacrificing as much as possible for Magda. During the march, she considered giving Magda away to possibly live a normal life due to her “Aryanness,” and hid her during attendance at the concentration camp each morning. Ozick provides the important detail that Rosa gave almost all her food (while Stella gave nothing, again exemplifying why Rosa did not like Stella) to Magda in an attempt to protect Magda’s health and ensure normal development. In the stories’ examples of Rosa’s relationship with Magda, her form of sacrificing herself for Magda came in an attempt to allow Magda to live as normal as possible. This is clearly evident when, while Rosa saw that Magda was

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