First Reaction

My first reaction to The Shawl was here we go again another monotone story, another historical piece of fiction that will not keep my attention for to long. However once I started reading the story of The Shawl, I felt it was going too different, a different kind of story to tell. The first part of the Shawl got off to a slow start, I could not quite get into the story, so I continued reading, I realize that this story had a bit more emotion then the previous one we read, it is almost as if mother was calling out to us for help. During this particular time many men women and children were confined to concentration camps, where they were imprisoned too one location of the camp, and where they suffered from exhaustion, starvation, and exposure. While reading Rosa’s story she was clearly a prisoner in of the concentration camps, and were she was trying to protect her daughters from the camp guards. The shawl represents how Rosa used it to feed as well as protect her daughter Magda from the prison guards. Rosa made her daughter suck on the shawl, with hopes it would feed her, I believe with Magda’s salvia is what she is feeding on, the more she sucked on it the more liquid she would get because Rosa’s body (breasts) dried up so Magda was getting nothing. The shawl also represents protection; she was trying to shield her daughter from the guards, until Magda got loose and ran, to be later shot down but the guards. I could never image watching my little girl suffer, that image would last with me for a long time, and I have a feeling that is what Rosa is suffering from. Once I began to read Rosa’s story it is clear to me that Rosa never really healed from what happened to her during that point of her life.