The Shawl

586 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The importance of setting in a story

Many times in stories, authors will use the setting to set the stage for the story. The setting is like the foundation of the story, and without one the story seems merely lost. Quite often the setting will build up the story and affect the characters, and the characters behaviors. Against the backdrop of a Holocaust concentration camp, Ozick produces two static characters whose lack of development throughout the story emphasizes the theme of overwhelming hopelessness. In The Shawl Rosa, her infant daughter Magda, and her fourteen year old companion Stella are Jews interned in a concentration camp during World War II. Amazingly the infant Magda has survived with her mother, hidden and protected in a shawl. If the Nazis ever learn of her existence she is certain to be killed. The Setting of this story sets the reader up for a sad story. Just by knowing the story takes place in a concentration camp, the reader immediately feels sorrow for these three characters. The story starts off with the 3 characters walking down a dirt path. The story is written in 3rd person limited, so you can only get into the characters thoughts at certain times. You can tell by Rosa’s thoughts of leaving Magda on the street for someone to find, that she is very disgruntled and not thinking very clearly. The story tells about Magda’s attachment to the shawl, and how it eases her and gives her peace. Throughout the walk down the road, you see that both Rosa and Stella are both envious of Magda’s ...

Show More
Related

  • Livia Bitton-Jackson Loosly Autobiographical Piece, Elli: Coming of Age in the Holocaust”

    526 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the book, apart from describing her experiences of living in Auschwitz, Livia Bitton-Jackson focuses on presenting certain ideas to the reader. The three main themes are: hope; taking risks; and growing up.

    Read More

  • Use of Symbolism in Cynthia Ozick's The Shawl

    425 Words  | 1 Pages

    In The Shawl, Cynthia Ozick uses descriptive details to engage the reader. The story describes the horror of Nazism. The setting of the story is a concentration camp. The three main characters are Rosa, who was a mother of two daughters, Stella who was fourteen and Magda who was fifteen months. The plot of the story surrounds a magic shawl. The shawl is a major part of the complication, climax and resolution of the story. The magic shawl is the only thing the three starving women have keeping them alive and eventually leads to their demise. The plot of The Shawl ends with a camp guard tossing the infant Magda onto an electrified fence.

    Read More

  • The Sniper by Liam O'Flaherty

    411 Words  | 1 Pages

    How the setting was expressed is also a vital part for the development of the story. The opening paragraph gives a vivid description of the situation as would physically been seen.

    Read More

  • The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

    823 Words  | 2 Pages

    The setting of a story lays the foundation for how a story is constructed. It gives a sense of direction to where the climax is headed. The setting also gives the visual feedback that the readers need to picture themselves into the story and comprehend it better. Determining the setting can be a major element towards drawing in the reader and how they relate to a story. A minor change in the plot can drastically alter to perception, interpretation, and direction of the message that is delivered. These descriptive elements can be found within these short stories: “the Cask of Amontillado”, “The Storm”, “The Things They Carried”, “Everyday Use”, and “The Story of an Hour”.

    Read More

  • An Unlikely Friendship Grows in John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    The most prominent settings used throughout the entirety of the novel are Berlin and Auschwitz. In these settings, the active transition from one house to the other and the locations of which the houses are positioned in. The next setting is the fence, as the fence is situated on the border of the camp to divide both sides, from Jew and German. Due to the current relations of the Germans and Jews at the time. Along with the hole or opening under the fence, exhibiting a penitential connection to occur between both sides. And finally the third settings are the gradua...

    Read More

  • Use of Symbolism in Golding's Lord of the Flies

    1323 Words  | 3 Pages

    This story takes place during World War II on a deserted island. After a plane, transporting about a dozen young boys, gets shot down, they are trapped on an island without any adults. Throughout a few week period, they become separated through many difficult, and trying times. Each character and object that is frequently used, are symbols that represent a small part in the big picture. Through the symbols, the author portrays what each boy contributes, or burdens, the island with during their struggle to escape.

    Read More

  • Joy Kogawa's Obasan

    1771 Words  | 4 Pages

    Much about Kogawa's novel makes it difficult not only to read but also to classify or categorize. First, Obasan blurs the line between nonfiction and fiction. Kogawa draws from actual letters and newspaper accounts, autobiographical details, and historical facts throughout the novel, but she artistically incorporates this material into a clearly fictional work. In addition, Kogawa's narrative operates on multiple levels, from the individual and familial to the communal, national, political, and spiritual. Stylistically, the novel moves easily between the language of documentary reportage and a richly metaphorical language, and between straightforward narrative and stream-ofconsciousness exposition. This astonishing variety in Kogawa's novel can, at times, become bewildering and unsettling to the reader. But as many readers and critics have noted, Kogawa's style and method in Obasan also constitute the novel's unique strength. Kogawa writes in such a way that ambiguity, uncertainty, irony, and paradox do not weaken her story but instead — paradoxically — become the keys to understanding it.

    Read More

  • The Shawl

    1247 Words  | 3 Pages

    Born and raised in a family of storytellers, it’s no wonder that this author, Louise Erdrich became a prolific writer. Louise was born in Little Falls, Minnesota. She grew up in Wahpeton, North Dakota, near the Chippewa Reservation with her mom, who had Native American roots and her dad who was of German descent. Her parents encouraged and challenged her at an early age to read, also to write stories and even paid her a nickel for each one that she wrote. Lorena Stookey states that Louise Erdrich’s style of writing is “like William Faulkner, she creates a fictional world and peoples it with multiple narrators whose voices commingle to shape her readers’ experience of that world” (Stookey 14). Louise writes this moving story “The Shawl” as she is haunted by the sorrows of the generations of her people, the Anishinaabeg. I initially saw this tale as a very complex reading, but after careful reading and consideration, saw it as a sad and compelling story.

    Read More

  • Importance of Setting in The Cask of Amontillado and Hills Like White Elephants

    769 Words  | 2 Pages

    Settings are used in short stories so that they can complement the themes. Themes in “The Cask of Amontillado” included revenge and deception, which were brought out by the carnival and the catacombs settings. Themes in “Hills Like White Elephants” included evasion of responsibility and miscommunication, and this was outlined by the train tracks, the environment on either side of the train tracks, and the hills themselves. Hence, in both short stories, setting played an integral role in emphasizing the themes.

    Read More

  • Helena Maria Viramontes’ The Moths

    1672 Words  | 4 Pages

    Through vivid yet subtle symbols, the author weaves a complex web with which to showcase the narrator's oppressive upbringing. Two literary

    Read More

  • Kurt Vonnegut: A Literary Analysis

    661 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the great literary devices is setting. Throughout the story there are three different setting.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis Of The Film The Pianist

    1271 Words  | 3 Pages

    Polanski also uses theatrical elements in order to bring the struggles of the Holocaust to life. An example of these elements is the setting. The beginning of the film shows that the film took place in Warsaw during World War II. Another example of a setting is scene 30 which is the ghetto that the Jews were put in. This is also the place where they were forced onto a train to a different

    Read More

  • Importance of setting in Soldier’s Home by Ernest Hemmingway

    598 Words  | 2 Pages

    Second, what is the mood of this story trying to portray with the setting. The setting c...

    Read More

  • Importance of the Setting in The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    The setting of a story sets the tone for the entire piece. Without the appropriate setting, what the author is trying to express is lost. In “The Cask of Amontillado”, Edgar Allan Poe uses the setting as a way to set the stage for the events that will come. Poe’s settings make his stories interesting, as well as easy to understand because of his descriptiveness and writing techniques. His use of vivid details and symbols in his settings intrigue the readers and set a particular tone. Each and every setting has a direct meaning and reason attached to that of the story and time.

    Read More

  • The Lottery Criticism

    808 Words  | 2 Pages

    Literary elements are demonstrated throughout the story and further improve our understanding of the central idea. The setting is important to the central idea because it shows the reader the type of society being described in the story. The language is also important to the central idea because it contains metaphors which further prove that the people are afraid of going against tradition because they are scared of being the target of violence. The conflict contributes to the central idea as well, because there are many examples of the society going against character, Mrs. Hutchinson, for not respecting the traditions put in place. The central idea is important to our understanding of the story because it sums up the main objective and furthers our

    Read More

More about The Shawl

Open Document