The two sections of this novel are very emotionally charged. The first, "The Shawl" is a short story that really gets at the heart of the holocaust and what happened to millions of people. Compared to the rest of the novel, "the Shawl" section had a lot to do with how Rosa turned out for the rest of her life. The death of her little daughter, Magda, seriously disturbed her and her niece Stella. Rosa often talks of her niece as being "cold" or heartless. But being put through that situation would turn absolutely everyone cold.
The tone of "The Shawl" was dark, cold, and dragging. As you're reading it the descriptive words really do give you the feelings as if you are marching or walking forever, and the feeling of hopelessness really comes across within the writing. "Rosa did not feel hunger; she felt light, not like someone walking but like someone in a faint, in trance, arrested in a fit, someone who is already a floating angel, alert and seeing everything, but in the air, not there, not touching the road." This passage really brings about the feeling of selflessness. It is as if she was watching her own body go through the motions of this horrible act. She was no longer walking, she was just moving. She was doing what she had to do to try to keep herself and her child alive. But she is very aware that her child is dying. This can all be read through this language. This seeing oneself as an angel, or a ghost. It shows how the people who had gone through this must have had to shut off a part of themselves in order to continue. Rosa had something to keep going for, and that was her child, however without Magda there, I'm not sure if Rosa would have continued to move the way she was in order to reach some sort of hopefulness for her baby. However when Stella takes that hope away from her and little Magda is thrown into the electric fence, everything changes for her, for the rest of her life.
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