The Shawl by Cynthia Ozick post 2

Is Rosa crazy? It is something that is definitely left up to the opinion of the reader. Through out the entire novel Rosa seems to personify her daughter Magda's shawl as being alive and a part of Magda. When she receives the shawl in the mail from Stella, she can't even open it without almost ritualizing the box it came in. She has these illusions, or so it seems, about Magda still being alive. She claims when she smells the shawl it brings Magda back. She appears to be alive and well, living her life, married and working. All of this sort of speaks to Rosa's apparent insanity. She doesn't seem old enough in the novel to be losing her mind, however the things that she was put through during the Holocaust may have aged her more than a normal person, and she was slowly losing a grip on reality. When she meets Persky, she automatically assumes that he is a threat. She thinks that everyone is out to get her in some way. She even thinks that she seems crazy to the people around her, and I think that may have been her admitting that she is. She also explodes on the manager of the hotel on the beach that had barbed wire fences around its perimeter. She couldn't understand that it was just to make it a private beach or private hotel. It is as if normal things that happen within her life, such as meeting people, or common decencies such as keeping a hotel private, are all attacks on her personally. I wouldn't say that Rosa is completely insane. She has reason to feel the way she feels: threatened, worried, lost, confused, sad. She was put through so much torture in her life that anything good seems undeserved or worthless to her. Her insane behavior in reality makes perfect sense.