Have you ever had a possession that was so essential to your existence that you felt you couldn’t live without it? For instance, I have known many people who have said. I will die without that! They may be speaking of things such as their cell phone, or their Blackberry. In these cases being without these items probably wouldn’t cause them to die. Similarly, there are also people who hold onto items that belonged to a loved one, no longer in their life, who believe that without this item, they will die. I have a hope chest that my dad built me when I was a senior in high school. He passed away just a couple of years later and I have to say that I’ve been guilty of the mentality of I would just die without that because the hope chest is so special to me. After reading “The Shawl”, I have revised my thinking though. In the short story “The Shawl” written by Cynthia Ozick, the shawl is a critical part of this small family’s existence. The shawl is shown to truly be a possession that someone cannot live without.
In the very beginning of the story we start to learn of the shawl’s importance to a small family. We see Rosa carrying her baby, Magda, wrapped in the shawl. Rosa and her niece Stella are walking on the road together. They are so very, very cold, “the coldness of hell”. (Ozick 1) Magda’s baby, Rosa is wrapped up snugly in the shawl while she suckles at her mother’s breast. (Ozick 3-8) In this we see how the shawl is critical for Magda’s warmth.
Soon, Orick describes the hunger and how Rosa is starving and has no milk for the baby. We see that the baby is starving. Orick describes the baby physically as being “fifteen months old and having spindly legs that could not hold up her fat belly that was fat wi...
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...fence and stands dumbstruck looking at her baby daughter’s body. She stands watching trying to decide whether to go to her or stay where she is in safety. She decides to stay where she is and she takes a corner of the shawl into her own mouth and stuffs it in as far as she can. Once again the shawl is there for protection from screaming, and for comfort in her loss.
Throughout the story we saw the importance of the shawl and the different needs that it met. We saw it used for warmth, curbing hunger and the need to suck, entertainment, love, comfort, and protection. Because of the circumstances of Magda’s life and her lack of worldly possessions and emotional fulfillment, the shawl was indeed an item that Magda could not live without!
Works Cited
Ozick, Cynthia. Ms Brogan, English at Harry Truman High School. Ed. Brogan. 22 August 2009. .
She returns to her grandmother’s house with the baby, and since there are no kids allowed where her grandma lives, she has to be extra careful that the baby doesn’t cry. The reason that she went to her grandmother’s house is because that’s where she lives. Her mother left her a long time ago. Anyway, she spends the whole night taking care of the baby by feeding it with the formula provided in the bag, and changing its diapers. She soon gets really sick of it.
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
Cynthia Ozick's short story "The Shawl" is intended to accentuate cool misfortune and gloom. Furthermore, Magda, the guiltless newborn child, is the main character to flourish for the vast majority of the story, regardless she turns into a casualty to the brutality of her general surroundings. In addition, Rosa tries to keep the subject Magda alive, and through the shawl, gives the main warmth in the story, while Stella intensely watches this new tyke receiving the consideration that Stella herself needs. Per users sympathizing with any of the three characters end the story feeling misfortune and distress.
Meyer, Michael, ed. The Bedford Introduction to Literature: Reading, Thinking, Writing. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999.
The Carmelites were forced no longer wear their habits, but plain clothes instead. Similarly, the Carmelites dressed the statue of the Infant Jesus with plain clothes in hopes to disguise it when they ship it to the Dauphin. Afraid of martyrdom, Blanche flees the convent and returns to her father’s house; she ran right into the heart of her fear. Her father is killed by revolutionaries, and as she stands over his dead body, a revolutionary spots her. He soon realizes that she is a nun, and forces her to receive “communion”, but instead of receiving the Blood of Christ, she is forced to drink to blood of the people slain by the revolutionaries. According to Villeroi, “Blanche at that moment, embodied her martyred country…” She was taken by the “September Mothers”, thus falling right into the hands of her foes. Likewise, the Revolutionaries intercepted the package containing the Infant King, and it too, fell right into the hands of the foes. The Carmelites expected this to happen, as their motivation of sending the package was to get the Dauphin martyred, as they themselves wanted to be martyred. This hope for martyrdom was what led Blanche to flee the convent. The Carmelites are now being brought to the scaffold, and Blanche is present there against the crowd. After the last nun is martyred, Blanche, still in the crowd, carries on their song. The
The wings worn on the head prevent others from seeing their face and vice versa, prevents them from looking anywhere except the direction in which they are facing, limiting their options to stray. All garments cover every inch of skin; Ankle length skirt, full sleeves and red gloves all worn by the Handmaid's prevent temptation for others and t...
Neuleib, Janice, Kathleen Shine Cain, and Stephen Ruffus, eds. Mercury Reader for English 101. Boston: Pearson Learning Solutions, 2013 Print.
symbolic of this. These women themselves represent the allusion of the fates, and the black wool they use foreshadows the dark fate and horror that Mar...
The second stanza of the poem focuses on a different aspect of the mother’s personality. Although Millay is addressing her mother’s death, the tone is not sentimental. In lines 5-6, the speaker uses the small detail of the mother’s brooch to illustrate her mother’s personality: the brooch is symbolic of some of her mother’s characteristics, “The golden brooch my mother wore/She left behind for me to wear” (Millay, lns 5-6). The fact that the speaker’s mother wore a golden brooch displays that she acknowledged finery: the brooch symbolizes the fact that the narrator’s mother had a good sense of style and was steadfast and brave, in addition to being feminine and beautiful, just like the brooch. The golden brooch accommodates as a contrast to
Dickens describes Lucie as “the golden thread” that binds the story and characters together. She has a huge involvement in the plot, and the other characters lives. Although many describe her as too submissive, and a stereotype of Victorian women, she represents bravery. Through the comparison of her to Madame Defarge, Dickens show us this.
Sacrifices are often made to strengthen bonds, and no other bond in the novel is stronger than the one that Lucie Mannette shares with her father , Dr. Manette. Indeed, Lucy has gone to great lengths to ensure that their bond stays strong. In the opening chapters of the novel, Lucie, in hopes that her pleas can cure her father’s insanity, devotes herself to Dr. Manette wholeheartedly, disregarding any personal desires of her own. She promises her father that if, “ ..I hint to you of a home there is before us, I will be true to you with all my duty.” (46) Lucie’s undying devotion to her father is a clear example of how one person’s sacrifice can inspire life in another.
This was a day filled with nothing but horror. Ozick takes her perspective by portraying her characters Rosa, Stella, and Magda, in such a way that the terror could personally be felt. At the beginning of the story, Ozick states, “Stella carried Magda. But she was jealous of Magda.” This shows that the conditions they were living in were so bad that it caused them to crave the comfort of an infant. Ozick symbolizes the horror that took place through the characters Rosa and Magda as an example of what took place in the Holocaust.
Lastly and most importantly would be Lucie’s elaborate expression of sentimentality in her constant fainting at the least sign of distress. However unbearable it might have seemed, the reader could not fully appreciate the significance of her character and why she was loved by so many equally sentimental; characters in the novel. When Lucie early on testifies at Darnay’s trial in the English court, she says, “He was kind, and good, and useful to my father. I hope,” and here she bursts into tears, “ I may not repay him by doing him harm here today.” Her deep sensitivity and generous nature shines through. And remember, when Lucie stands forlornly and devotedly at a place near the Paris prison in order for her husband, Darnay, to glimpse her and their child, it is clear that Dickens wanted to portray her as a loving, faithful, and sympathetic person.
exactly what's going on and begins to resent Wangero even more. The quilts themselves are symbols in the story, interpreted in different ways, by the narrator, the author, the reader, and Wangero. Again, Walker uses the narrator's simplicity to her advantage. While Wangero sees the quilts as a symbol of her heritage, the narrator. sees them only literally, as blankets to be used, not saved for. cultural posterity.
Advanced English 12: Humanities. Eden Prairie High School. Eden Prairie. March 2012. Class discussion.