Today we are featuring two award-winning stories from Cynthia Ozick. The first, The Shawl, is set in Second World War Poland and deals with the horrors of the holocaust as experienced a young mother (Rosa), her infant child (Magda), and fourteen-year-old-niece (Stella). The second story, Rosa, is a sequel to the first. Set in the USA over thirty years later, it demonstrates the devastating long-term effects of the women’s war-time experiences.
The Shawl
In just over 2,000 words, this modern classic manages to capture the worst of man’s inhumanity towards man: the frightened resignation of starving prisoners as they are marched through the frozen countryside; the brutality of life in the camps; desperate inmates sinking to unimaginable depths in order to survive; Magda’s poetic “swim through the air” on the way to her inevitable death. Juxtaposed through all this is Rosa’s love for the emaciated child, who she secrets away most of the day inside a “magic”, sweet-smelling, woollen cocoon. Themes include motherly love, prejudice, brutality, fear, desperation and acceptance/survival.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (2,000 words)
Rosa
This story takes place over thirty years later. Stella claims to have “moved on”. Rosa, still filled with rage and mistrust, has become mentally unstable. Supported financially by Stella, she has recently moved from New York to Florida and lives in self-imposed isolation in a dingy “retirement hotel”. Her major pastime is writing letters to an imaginary adult incarnation of the dead Magda. The story is full of pathos and contradictions, lightened (and perhaps heightened) by dark humor. Themes: (general) abandonment of the elderly; (Rosa) the holocaust, alienation, loneliness, shame, racism; (Simon Persky) kindness, patience; (Dr Tree) scientific arrogance, insensitivity.
Original Text / PDF (14,600 words)