The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick

Question:

What do you think Ozick's intentions are with this book? What does she want us to get out of it?

Response:

It's hard to say exactly what Ozick's intentions are with this book. I feel as though she has more than just one message to share. In my perspective, there seems to be a lot of different meanings one can come across while reading The Shawl. I believe that many readers can walk away from this book carrying separate ideas about what they considered to be the most important and common theme.

In my opinion, I think Ozick wants us to observe fear and hate. These two themes seem to be the most common within both sections of the book. In the first part when the focus is on Rosa, Stella & Magda it is very clear that they are living in fear and hate the situation that has come upon them. When Magda's presence becomes known to the guards she is tossed toward the electric fence, which ultimately kills her. The guards encourage Rosa to run in Magda's direction, but Rosa is aware of the consequences of doing so and fears what they could do to her. "...the steel voices went mad in their growling, urging Rosa to run and run to the spot where Magda had fallen from her flight against the electrified fence; but of course Rosa did not obey them. She only stood, because if she had ran they would shoot, and if she had tried to pick up the sticks of Magda's body they would shoot...."(Ozick, page 10). They constantly lived in fear and especially in this instance where Rosa could have been shot and killed for almost no reason at all. In the second section of the book where Rosa is the primary focus I find that her hatred toward her past is very evident. She hated her experience in Warsaw, she hated the customers who visited her old antique shop and she hated her living situation in Florida. After her struggle in Poland she arrived in NYC and became a rather successful store owner. However, after she destroyed her own shop because of her fear and hatred toward "the voices" (aka, the customers) her life quickly went downhill. For some time she was doing well for herself, but soon enough everything collapsed and she wound up in Florida in an old hotel room that is described as being very unkept and rather depressing.

Anyway, I think Ozick really just wants us to see the impact that fear and hatred can have on us. If we dwell on such emotions we can only do worse for ourselves.