The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick post 3

Motherhood completely changes a woman. Once a woman has a child it is as if the whole world view shifts and becomes only about that child. Another issue is losing that child. Whether it is immediately after birth or at any point after, losing a child is a traumatic experience that a woman may never completely recover from. Especially in the situation Rosa was in. We are never completely told who the father of Magda is, but Stella is convinced Rosa was raped by S.S, and the child was "one of them". However, Rosa denies this. Then, Rosa loses Magda by the hand of an S.S. officer, but she puts the blame on Stella. Magda was the only thing Rosa had that still remained hers. Magda was Rosa's baby and they couldn't take that from her. She lost everything during the holocaust, but she still had Magda. Magda and the Shawl were all that remained in her possession. And that's not to say that all Magda was to Rosa, was a possession, but I think that that was part of it. Magda was something of normality, of innocence, that she could hold onto. And it was taken from her. After that Rosa was never the same. She couldn't move on from the past and admit to herself that her baby is dead. Rosa needed to remember that she was a mother first. She would do anything to protect her baby. And I think she has guilt that she didn't do anything to stop the S.S. from killing her child. She wouldn't have succeeded, obviously, but that doesn't logically help her guilt.