"The Shawl"

There has been much research conducted in accordance with the long-term psychological effects that the Holocaust had on its victims. Nearly 70 years later there are still those people who are suffering from the insecurities and/or childhood memories of the atrocities they witnessed. Not only has the Holocaust affected the victims, but it has been proven that it is transgenerational as well. In an article written by Nathan Kellerman he states, “The offspring of both these groups, the so-called ‘second generation’, gain more awareness of the repressed pain that they indirectly have absorbed from their parents.” In Cynthia Ozick’s “The Shawl” the reader can witness the crippling effect that the horrors witnessed had on the long-term mental state of the character Rosa.

In Ozick’s second story titled “Rosa”, the character is immediately introduced to the reader as, “…a madwoman and a scavenger.”(pg. 13) Ozick uses a strong sense of imagery to portray Rosa as a character that leads a disheveled life as she describes her filthy living space and the “dark hole” of a hotel room in which she resides (pg. 13). Furthermore, Ozick uses metaphorical literary methods to emphasize the state that Rosa’s life is in. Rosa believes herself to be a shell “already fried from the sun.”(pg. 16) When comparing herself to the other residents of Florida she describes them by saying, “They were all scarecrows, blown about under the murdering sunball with empty ribcages.”(pg. 16) Rosa’s perception of herself is again represented by imagery and metaphors as she views herself like “a ragged old bird with worn feathers. Skinny, a stork.” (pg. 23) Such strong, yet dark, language immediately notifies the reader that Rosa clearly has internal struggles that the reader later learns is as a direct result from the loss of her child in a concentration camp.

Elie Wiesel, author of the holocaust novel titled “Night”, accurate states that “time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain open.” This proves to be the case for Rosa as she refuses to accept the death of her daughter that took place decades before hand, still writing her letters and speaking to her as if she were actually going to read them. She continuously imagines how her daughter would be at this stage in her life, married, a doctor. Rosa’s psychological instability is also represented by the extreme actions she took when destroying her own business in New York. Ozick makes it a point to relate this incident with the mental effects that Rosa’s character is still suffering from her traumatic experiences of her past. The psychological implications of the Holocaust on Rosa are evidently still very strong even decades after the incident.

When I first read “The Shawl” I liked it because of the author’s ability to use imagery and metaphors to really draw the reader into the details of Rosa’s life. For me, it was easy to become involved with this character as a reader because the emotions going on with Rosa are so vividly presented. But as I reflected on what I had read it had a greater impact on me that meant more than just the process of reading the story. I began to really think about Rosa’s situation, and then understand the hundreds of thousands of other people who were similarly affected by the Holocaust, and are still suffering long after. It made me think further about the psychological effects that such an atrocity carries through generations of a family. For example, the children of the Holocaust who lost their parents before they really even had a chance to know them, perhaps clinging on to vague memories they had while they were still alive. The grandchildren that don’t have an extended family because all of their ancestors were wiped out by violence and hatred. I contemplated the insecurities that could result for an entire family and the lack of trust that they may pass on to their own children. At what point do these toxic psychological effects start to disappear? How many generations of a family that suffered from the Holocaust does it take to recover from unimaginable circumstances? “The Shawl”, to me, brings this awareness to the reader, and made me realize that the Holocaust is not so far back in the past as I used to think it was.