Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl"
...e blanket. Rosa then witnesses her daughter being barbarically thrown into an electric fence and killed by a Nazi soldier. Stella has been deprived of food, not sheltered from the elements of nature, and exposed to the brutal conditions in the camp. She is starving, dwindling down to nothing but chicken bones as arms and twigs as legs. The food that is provided is not enough to keep a human being alive and she resents being asked by Rosa to spare some food for Magda as does her mother. Since the child is not properly nourished, she is bloated with air. To Stella, the plump baby looks good enough to eat. Because of the elements of the setting coupled with her hunger, she hallucinates about cannibalism. She is also angry with Magda because she is always carried during the walks to different concentration camps and hidden from the harsh treatment of the Nazis. Stella takes the shawl from the baby because she is cold and there are no blankets provided for warmth. She knows that she will aid in the killing of the child if the blanket is missing because it is Magda’s security. Stella hates Magda because she is provided food, warmth and shelter from the elements of nature, protected the soldiers, and due to her age, she doesn’t comprehend what is happening around her. Stella’s desire and jealousy are understandable and therefore the actions of Stella are not uncommon due to the time frame in which the story takes place. Additional actions happen due to the time period in which they occur. Rosa awakes to find her daughter missing and hears her screaming outside the barracks. Rosa hears “grainy sad voices” from the electric fence telling her to run back to recover the shawl, to raise the blanket high and shake it and wave it like a flag to get the baby’s attention so that Magda stops screaming and runs to her mother to possibly save her daughters life. But, she is confused as what to do because drawing attention to herself will insure her death as well. A woman under normal circumstances would have yelled for her daughter, charged after her daughter without even thinking about her own safety, or at least would...