Ozick The Shawl Study Questions

Special note: remember that The Shawl (in italics) refers to both the short story and the novella.

The short stories "The Shawl" and "Rosa," in quotes, refer to the stories themselves.

General Questions

1. Ozick uses a quote from Celan’s “Death Fugue” as the epigraph to the text.  Why might she have chosen Celan?  Why those specific lines (as opposed to all the other lines she could have quoted)?

2. We learn that Rosa’s store in New York specialized in antique mirrors (26), and mirrors are noted elsewhere in the text.  Discuss the significance of mirrors as a metaphor in the text, as well as doubling and repetition. 

3. Do a little research into midrash, in case you're not familiar with this immensely important Jewish religious tradition (which Ozick certainly is).  Is it possible to see "Rosa" as a kind of midrashic commentary on "The Shawl"?

4. Discuss the various ways in which language functions in the text: Rosa’s “broken” English, her literary Polish, Rosa’s/the narrator’s comments on language, and so forth.  You can also relate this discussion to the speech/silence dichotomy in the text. 

5. Discuss the different ways in which Ozick intertwines birth and death, life and death throughout the text. Consider also that giving birth has often been used as a metaphor for creating a story (even “bearing” witness).

6. Several commentators have observed that Rosa does not resemble the kind of Holocaust survivor familiar to us from many other Holocaust narratives.  In some ways, she's an unsympathetic character, unpleasant to almost everyone she interacts with in the text.  Why do you think Ozick portrays this particular type of Holocaust survivor?

7. Discuss the significance of witnessing in the text, from Rosa’s and Stella’s primary witnessing to the importance of having secondary witnesses, i.e., those who listen to the primary witnesses' testimonies.

8. Assess the significance of the story's narration.  It's not first-person, as Rosa never narrates--we hear her speak and write, but she does not narrate in the first person.  But Ozick uses a sophisticated form of a technique known, via French, as free indirect style, in which the story reads almost as if it were being narrated by the character.  What are the consequences of this technique for our reading and understanding?

“The Shawl”

1. Rosa imagines that Magda could be “one of their babies” (4), and Stella later calls her an Aryan (5).  What does this suggest?

2. As Rosa’s milk has dried up, what does Magda do instead?

3. Magda is repeatedly referred to as mute, until the very end.  Comment on the recurrent motifs of the mouth and voice(s) we encounter in the story. 

4. What metaphor is used to describe the first sounds Magda makes?

5. As Rosa stands at the edge of the arena, what does she imagine that she hears?

6. Comment on the writing used to describe Magda’s death.  Compare this with the exquisite language we saw in Celan and reflect on Ozick’s own statement, concurring with Adorno, that “after Auschwitz no more poetry.”

7. What does Rosa do at the end to suppress “the wolf’s screech” (10)?

“Rosa”

1. The novella opens with the “madwoman” and her having destroyed her own store.  How does this connect with the end of “The Shawl”?

2. What do we learn from her writing of letters to Stella and Magda about Rosa’s language skills?
   Also, is it significant that she does not know Yiddish?

3. What does she mean when she says to Persky that “My Warsaw isn’t your Warsaw” (19)?  Also, is it significant that she does not know Yiddish?

4. What do we learn from her daydream about her past and upbringing?

5. What is the significance of Rosa telling Persky “[w]hatever I would say, you would be deaf” and saying that, in the store, “[w]hoever came, they like deaf people. . . .  they didn’t understand” (27)? 

6. What metaphor does Rosa use to describe the covers on her bed?

7. We are provided with a short review of what happened to Magda.  Does the story assume or require that we have actually read “The Shawl”? 

8. What is Stella’s view of Rosa that emerges from her letter, and how does Rosa respond?

9. Stella’s letter tells Rosa to live her life, to which she responds, “Thieves took it . . .” (33).  Why do you think she repeatedly uses this metaphor?

10. The narration, apparently from Rosa’s perspective, perceives the similarity between Persky’s crazy wife and Rosa (35).  Does this reveal a self-awareness on Rosa’s part?

11. What other letter does Rosa receive and how does she react to it?

12. What are some of the notable features of Rosa’s letter to Magda?

13. As part of that discussion, what story about Magda’s father and family does she create for Magda, and what image both of Magda as child and Rosa as mother emerges from the letter?

14. Following the letter, what comments about writing and language do we find?  What does it tell us about Rosa’s life in America, restricted to using English?  What should we make of the conclusion “To lie” (44)?

15. The narrator wonders why Rosa would go searching the beach for her lost underpants and why she seems to care more about them than the business she destroyed.  Can we answer that?

16. Summarize the scene of her trip to the beach, what happens, whom she encounters, and some of the images and metaphors used.

17. As she gazes out into the sea, what does she briefly think about doing?

18. At the end of her conversation with Finkelstein, she comments on her attitude toward Jews, or at least certain types of Jews, she received from her parents.  What are those views?

19. Persky asks her what she lost that she went looking for, and Rosa responds, “My life” (55).  Why is that her answer to the question?

20. What view of life does Persky express on page 56?

21. Rose refers to “[t]he life before, the life during, and the life after. . . Before is a dream.  After is a joke.  Only during stays” (58).  Comment.

22. Does Persky, who left Europe 20 years before the Holocaust, have the right to be so critical of Rosa, as on the bottom of page 58?

23. Is it significant that Rosa allows Persky to open the box that she thought contained the shawl?

24. What is her immediate reaction upon finally receiving the shawl? 

25. When Magda finally comes “alive,” how does Rosa imagine and describe her?

26. Rosa thinks, “It was as if the peril hummed out from the filaments of Magda’s hair, those narrow bright wires” (66).  What does the language of this description remind us of?

27. How does Rosa describe the Warsaw Ghetto and how does she view many of the Jews with whom they had to share the Ghetto?

28. Rosa describes the tramcar (now just for non-Jewish Poles) that ran through the Ghetto.  What does she say was the “most astounding thing” (68)?  Then she concludes by saying that, when telling such stories to the “deaf” in her store, she “became like the woman with the lettuce” (69).  Explain.

29. Discussion the conclusion of the story.  What do we think the future holds for Rosa?