AML4 class 4

AML4 class 4

1

📖
AML4 class 4

Created

Class

AML4

Type

Class

Reading 1

Cynthia Ozick  The Shawl

Reading 2 Elizabeth Bishop - "One Art"

Readings:

Cynthia Ozick  The Shawl

In The Shawl Rosa, her infant daughter Magda, and her fourteen year old
niece Stella are Polish Jews interned in a concentration camp -- "a place
without pity" during World War II. Miraculously the infant Magda has
survived with her mother, hidden and protected in a shawl. If the Nazis ever
learn of her presence she is certain to be killed. Sharing food -- of which
there is never enough -- sucking on the shawl, Magda survives, for a while.
Eventually, of course, the inevitable occurs.

Magda survives much longer than her mother expects, thanks largely to the
shawl Rosa wraps her in, shielding her from the view of the camp guards
and providing her with something to suck on after Rosa loses the ability to
breastfeed

Stella, however, is jealous of Rosaʼs devotion to her daughter and eventually
steals the shawl from Magda to use as a blanket. Distraught, Magda
wanders out of the camp barracks, where she is spotted by a camp guard.
Before Rosa can reach her daughter, the guard throws Magda against the
campʼs electric fence, killing her

uses magical realism to describe the situation, uses animal imaginery Rosa
is likened to a tiger possessively guarding her young, Magdaʼs eyes are
described as being like blue tigers)

October 3, 2023 119 PM

AML4 class 4

2

As the narrative develops, the narrator tells us that Rosa and Stella are
gradually turning into air themselves - extreme hunger

images of silence and being silenced. Magda remains mute and this is the
way she avoids detection. The shawl helps, in that it acts as a kind of
pacifier or dummy and keeps her quiet and happy. When she loses the
shawl, she finally discovers her voice.

no name of any place - we donʼt know the land in which it is set - but it is in
concentration camp (could be Germany, Poland…)

The Shawl - even name for the whole collection

moral decision - should we save the older child, or the baby?

ordinary life is symbolised by the shawl - good smell, good taste, it is kinda
a magic shawl - when magda is sucking the shawl, her breath has
cinnamon and almonds in it

no one is shooting the the short story, however, there is a constant fear of
being shot (because of her hiding the baby)

style of the story:

minimalist story - not everything is included, we have to deduce

according to Arbeit, it is not a magic realism (but shawl is magic)

STELLA took the shawl because she said she is always cold, after taking
the shawl she was always cold - coldness materialized) cold-hearted

Elizabeth Bishop - "One Art"

Class Notes:

CONTEMPORARY JEWISH-AMERICAN

LITERATUREPhilip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, E.L. Doctorow, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nathan
Englander, Grace Paley, Art Spiegelman, Gary Shteyngart