The Shawl (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Cynthia Ozick
- First Published: 1989
- Type of Plot: Novella and short story
- Principal Characters: Rosa Lublin, Magda, Stella, Simon Persky
- Genres: Psychological fiction, Social realism, Short fiction
- Subjects: Mothers, Parents and children, Prisoners, Murder or homicide, Europe or Europeans, 1940’s, World War II, Guilt, 1980’s, Child abuse, Mental illness, Obsession, Jews or Jewish life, War, Florida, Nazism or Nazis, Germany or German people, Holocaust, Jewish, Poland or Polish people, Concentration camps, Joy or sorrow
- Locales: Germany, Miami, FL
The Novel
The Shawl is the book publication of Cynthia Ozick’s metaphorically complex and morally profound short story about the horrors of the Holocaust combined with her longer follow-up novella about the personal reverberations of that horror some thirty years later.
“The Shawl” is a breathtaking story. In seven short, poetically terrifying pages, Cynthia Ozick compresses the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust into a story that is as close to perfection as a story can be. The plot is thin to the point of nonexistence—a young Jewish mother loses her...
[The entire page is 2739 words long]
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