Cynthia Ozick presents many symbols in this powerful short story about a young mother's experience in the Holocaust. The shawl the mother wraps her baby, Magda, in is the comfort and life support for the child. It represents all that is good in a place where everything that is evil exists and prospers. Jealously rips the shawl from Magda's grasp and the child panics. Evil can now penetrate Magda because the shawl no longer serves as a guardian. I see the shawl simply as the little things in life we never bother to notice. We live in a world where it's hard to find the good in anything. It's people, certain songs we like, our favorite hobby, or simply the wind whistling through the trees that serve as our shawls. Magda fell into the hands of the Nazis because her innocent mind focused on the shawl and she panicked.
We can't focus on our shawls, instead we must focus on the road ahead and realize one day our shawls may not be there to protect us. The evil tendencies of this world tend to temporarily take away or change our shawls in the times of our lives we need them most. If we keep an open heart God reminds us He is the shawl that will never leave us and cannot be taken away by the darkness.
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Like this one.
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