The Shawl

Particularly in “The Shawl,” Ozick often uses poetic language and beautiful imagery to describe horrific events (e.g., comparing Magda to a butterfly as she’s thrown against the fence). What effect does this have, and how does it relate to Ozick’s broader interest in language?

Compare and contrast the amount of historical detail Ozick provides in “The Shawl” and “Rosa.” Why might Ozick provide relatively little information about time and place in the short story as opposed to the novella?

Discuss the ways in which fire imagery recurs throughout both “The Shawl” and “Rosa.” How does the motif evolve over the course of the work as a whole?