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Rosa | Introduction

“Rosa” by Cynthia Ozick was first published in the New Yorker in 1983. However, its protagonist, Rosa Lublin, was introduced three years earlier in “The Shawl,” a much shorter story also published in the New Yorker. The two stories were re-released together as a book in 1989 entitled The Shawl. “Rosa” also appeared in the anthology Prize Stories 1984, a collection of O. Henry Prize winners.

While “The Shawl” tells the painful story of how Rosa’s infant daughter is brutally killed by a Nazi guard in a concentration camp, “Rosa” revisits the protagonist 30 years later, who is still devastated by her daughter’s death. Living a meager, isolated existence in a “hotel” for the elderly, financed by Stella her resentful niece, Rosa is unable to let go of her daughter and the past.

“Rosa” dramatizes the lasting impact of the Holocaust on a unique, complex character who is not entirely sympathetic. While obviously the far-reaching effects of the Holocaust is a major theme in this story, Ozick also deals with themes of alienation and denial and explores how American culture devalues and isolates the

Rosa Summary

The story “Rosa” is set in 1977, the same year in which it was written. “Rosa” is written in the third person limited point of view, but the reader is allowed only Rosa’s viewpoint on events; letters in the story are, of course, written in first person. Because Rosa’s mental state is unstable, her perceptions are not always the most reliable.

Cynthia Ozick begins “Rosa” by describing the current state of Rosa Lublin’s meager existence. Having destroyed her own antique shop in New York City (“It was a mad thing to do”) Rosa is now living in a shabby “hotel” for the elderly in Miami, Florida. Her resentful and critical niece Stella, still living in New York, supports her. Rosa sees no one, goes out only when absolutely necessary, and barely eats enough to stay alive. She spends most of her time composing letters to her daughter Magda, who was killed as an infant by a Nazi guard in a concentration camp, thirty-five years ago.

As the story begins, Rosa reluctantly sets off to the laundromat (“After a while, Rosa had no choice”). While watching her clothes swirl about in the washer, she is approached by the flirtatious older man, Simon Persky. Like Rosa, he is from Warsaw, Poland, but Rosa is quick to tell him, “My Warsaw isn’t your Warsaw.” Undeterred, Persky helps her fold her laundry and insists on taking her to a diner for a hot cup of tea and a Danish. There he tells her that he is a retired businessman who once owned a button factory and that his wife is in a mental institution. Rosa tells him how she destroyed her antique shop, “Part with a big hammer . . . part with a piece of construction metal I picked up from the gutter.” When Perksy encourages her to tell more about her life, she gets up to go. She says she has no life, because “Thieves took it.”

When Rosa arrives back at her hotel, a package and two letters are waiting for her. The first letter is from Stella, who writes to... » Complete Rosa Summary