The Shawl: From Beginning to End

      A seen from the beginning of the novel, the Shawl represented a sense of life and preservation of life to Magda, Rosa's daughter. It was her keepsake, the thing that kept her quit and satisfied. Also, the Shawl was a protector of Magda. It was used to protect her from the harm of the Nazi soldiers during the time of the march, and was used as a comforting protector against the cruelness of the camps. After Magda was killed in the camp by being thrown against the fence, the shawl acted as only a memory of her life for Rosa. By the end of the second story, the Shawl lost all its importance. As Rosa began to move on, the shawls began to mean less and less. Instead of it being something that was bright and vibrant filled with life, it became dull and quiet. The meaning that it once had diminished by the end of the novel.  When she opened up the box which held the shawl, it was said that it looked dull and didn't automatically give Rosa the power of Magda to come alive. Instead it took a while for the feeling of Magda to come to life from the shawl. This began to show the death of the shawl and the moving on by Rosa from the past to the future now. For the first time since the Holocaust, Rosa wasn't able to recall the thought and life of Magda immediately form the shawl. It had lost most of its power by this point but not because the shawl was old or dull, it was because now Rosa was ready to move on. She had an internal reckoning that helped her to be able to move on. Before this, Rosa turned her phone back on, which also showed her want to connect with the outside world, as we discussed in class. We could  clearly see from this last section of the novel that Rosa was ready to move on and making changes in the direction. The shawl, representing her past, lost life but everything in her present gained life. She turned her phone back on, met with Mr. Persky and even took time out to call Stella. After Rosa wrote the letter to Magda explaining her past, she had a boulder lifted off her shoulders and was able to move on which was signified by the statement of the phone ringing, Mr. Persky coming up and Magda fading away.