Today I wanted to discuss the story The Shawl. And specifically the actual shawl itself and how it relates to Magda and Rosa.
While being the mother of a young child Rosa wants the best for her daughter and to be able to give her everything she wants. But, while being locked away in a camp Rosa is unable to do this. The only way Magda will eat is from breast-feeding from Rosa, but that could only last so long and “the weight of Rosa was turning into less and less.” She could no longer continue to feed Magda properly and was not getting enough nutrients herself.
Once Stella had taken away Magda’s shawl, Magda had “flopped onward with her little pencil legs scribbling this way and that in search of the shawl”. This little girl saw the shawl as one of her little sisters someone who would always be there for her in this time of cold and desperation need.
Rosa was actually happy when the day she saw that her little girl was going to die. It is very wrong when a mother wants her little child to die. I could never imagine this in my life but if you’re in such a terrible situation and a horrible surrounding that might actual happen. The pain and anguish that Rosa goes through is something I think no one ever wants to feel. But is very mature as a mother to let her daughter go to a better place in her life.