The Shawl

“Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of hell."

The first sentence of “The Shawl” isn’t actually a complete sentence at all but a fragment. This is significant both because it illustrates the impact that harsh physical conditions can have on one’s ability to think clearly, and because it hints at the ways in which Rosa will struggle, throughout the book, to articulate her experiences during the Holocaust. The opening line also introduces the motif of coldness while tacitly linking that motif to Stella, who later steals Magda’s shawl because she’s cold. In other words, Ozick here lays the groundwork for the cold’s symbolic meaning as a kind of infectious inhumanity.

"One mite of a tooth tip sticking up in the bottom gum, how shining, an elfin tombstone of white marble gleaming there. Without complaining, Magda relinquished Rosa’s teats, first the left, then the right; both were cracked, not a sniff of milk. The duct-crevice extinct, a dead volcano, blind eye, chill hole, so Magda took the corner of the shawl and milked it instead. She sucked and sucked, flooding the threads with wetness. The shawl’s good flavor, milk of linen."

The above passage develops the symbolism surrounding the shawl, which up until this point has served simply as a swaddling cloth and carrying sling for Magda. As Rosa loses the ability to breastfeed, the shawl takes on a newer and more life-giving role as something for Magda to “milk.” It becomes associated with nourishment and survival, extending Magda’s life and finally saving Rosa’s when she uses it to silence her screams at the story’s end. The passage also draws together