The Shawl

The Shawl is first and foremost a story about the Holocaust and what it means to survive when so many people didn’t. However, the theme of survival plays out slightly differently in each section of Ozick’s work. In “The Shawl,” Ozick approaches the issue in a somewhat abstract way, focusing less on the psychology of any particular character and more on the broadly human will to live. Despite the brutal conditions of the concentration camp and the constant threat of death, none of the characters ever entirely stops trying to survive. Despite knowing that Magda will die “very soon” (6) from the moment they’re sent to the camp, Rosa continues to protect her daughter on a daily basis and takes some pleasure in seeing her grow; even in the moments before Magda is murdered, Rosa feels “fearful joy” (7) hearing her daughter babble and cry like any normally developing baby. Even after Magda’s death, Rosa retains an instinctive sense of self-preservation, stuffing her daughter’s shawl into her mouth so she doesn’t scream aloud: “[I]f she let the wolf’s screech ascending now through the ladder of her skeleton break out, they would shoot; so she took Magda’s shawl and filled her own mouth with it” (10).