Hi folks — here’s the schedule of reading for next week (October 6-10), along with blog response questions:
By Monday, 10/6, please finish reading The Shawl (and see questions below for blog response).
By Wednesday, 10/8: Read up to page 55 in Jeanette Winterson’s Written on the Body.
By Friday, 10/10: Read up to page 111 in Written on the Body (up to second section, “The Cells, Tissues, Systems and Cavities of the Body”)
For Monday, 10/6, please respond to any one of the following questions (or you may discuss anything else that takes your attention):
- Why doesn’t Rosa run to protect Magda at the end? Is it because she fears death? Because she is traumatized? Because she is physically exhausted?
- What do we make of Magda’s physical appearance?
- What is the significance of the shawl?
- Has Rosa’s opinion of Stella changed since they were in the concentration camp? How do we know? What has changed?
- What is the significance of Rosa’s writing letters in different languages?
- Why does Rosa constantly tell Persky, “Your Warsaw isn’t my Warsaw”?
- Why is Rosa so reluctant to participate in Dr. Tree’s study?
- What is the significance of Ozick’s detailed description of Miami’s hot night (pp. 45-50)?
- Why is Rosa obsessed with finding her underwear? What might it represent?
- What is the significance of the WWII memories Rosa tries to share with her customers, especially the tram car scene (pp. 66-69)? Why does Rosa say, “I became like the woman with the lettuce” (69)?
12 responses so far ↓
marycreed // October 5, 2008 at 9:29 pm |
Buttons
Buttons represent people; some are unique and some are empty and generic.
Persky, who makes a living through buttons tells her “A shame. That kind’s hard to math, as far as I’m concerned we stopped making them around a dozen years ago”. Persky points out her missing button and says it is a shame because they do not make them anymore, again signifying that her loss was on that was irreplaceable and special.
Persky could never have been acquainted with buttons like that, they were so black and so sparkling; original, with irregular facets like bits of true coal from a vein in the earth or some other planet. (64-65) In Rosa’s memory Madga lives as an individual, she remembers her hair, her bright blue eyes, not just one in a number of many lost, she is special, that this is personified through the buttons on her dress which are “original” which she cares enough for to go into immense detail with even the “irregular facets”.
She is sick of people thinking that they know her, that the “survivors” are all clumped into one group and assumed to have the same story. These generalizations take away from the truth, her truth. Her story is sacred, “my Warsaw was not your Warsaw”(pg.19) She was “no ordinary button” like Persky, who like everyone else assumes that he knows. But he doesn’t. Not even Stella because she turned cold and chose to ignore the reality of what happened, and instead assign a science to emotion and feelings in a vain attempt to explain which ironically accuses people like Rosa of not coming to terms with reality. Rosa is missing one of her buttons on her dress, signifying her loss of her child that had also held things together for her and kept her sanity.
Perksy “almost understood what she was: no ordinary button.” He almost did, but he couldn’t, not completely because nobody else could, nobody but her. “I’m not your button, Persky! I’m nobody’s button, not even if they got barbed wire everywhere!”(pg.61) as if to say to him don’t pretend to understand what you do not know. I’m not an animal to research and I am not your past.
“All of Miami Beach, a box for useless buttons!” Florida is a land of empty buttons, empty people, shells that had their own past but choose to group themselves together to make the load lighter through numbers, but only to recreate one generic past and consciously choose to dissociate themselves with their real past.
berniechung // October 5, 2008 at 9:52 pm |
Rosa’s underwear represents the dignity of her life. Rosa’s obsession with finding her underwear seems to grow by the moment. She first assumes that she dropped it on the way home. Perhaps she dropped it when she sat down for tea with Persky. However, soon she turns the moment that he might have been trying to save her dignity into something “pornographic” (34). Later when she hits the streets in search of her lost underwear, her panic seems to grow. She wanders near a beach, where she never goes near, and searches for her underwear in the sand when she runs into two naked men. She condemns the men, the barbed wire on the fence, Dr. Tree, and Finkelstein. This leads me to think that the underwear must be the lost dignity of the “life after” (58). The shawl seems to represent the life before because she dresses Magda in her own clothes at age 16 when she “comes alive.” The life during is not really mentioned and focused on other than in the beginning of the narrative. The life after is represented by the underwear because she has lost her dignity somewhere along the way. She panics when she comes home and she is trying to figure out where the underwear went. It might be reflective of her life before Florida. She might have been moving along well with her own antic shop until she finds that she lost the dignity of the life after and she has to “kill” her store with an ax. In the same way she attacks the newsstand, gay men, Finkelstein, and even Persky. She says it is her life that she was looking for on the beach (55).
thang08 // October 5, 2008 at 10:20 pm |
The shawl symbolizes in many different ways. “Stella, cold, cold, the coldness of hell.” First of all, these words tell the characterization of Stella obviously. Stella is always cold in the camps, and took baby’s blanket, the shawl, to warm herself. It causes Magda to be killed. The shawl keeps Magda hidden from the Nazis. When Rosa and Stella are being marched to the camps, the baby is hidden in her mother’s shawl. Although Rosa gives Magda all her food, it causes Rosa’s milk to dry up. Because of this, Magda takes to sucking the edge of the shawl which serves as a pacifier as well as a covering.
Rosa realizes that Magda is unhidden and calling for her mommy because Rosa is missing the shawl on the morning of Madga’s death. Even though Rosa runs back to the barracks and snatches the shawl away from Stella, it is too late. When Rosa sees her baby hurled against an electrified fence, she puts the shawl into her mouth to prevent herself from crying out aloud. Rosa knows that the noise would have caused her to be killed. Finally, the shawl serves as the pacifier and the covering for Magda. Then, it pushes Magda to be killed. The shawl also saves the life of Rosa as well as it gives Stella to warm.
Ian T // October 5, 2008 at 10:39 pm |
I came up with two possible meanings for the statement at the end of the tramcar story. First was that Rosa considered herself to have something the others around her did not. Second was that she was thinking of herself as somewhat better than those around her, oblivious to the truth that was looking at her from all sides.
Rosa describes the ghetto which surrounds her first as a horrible inconvenience. She seems disgusted that all these Jews with all their obvious shortcomings should be pressed inside such close quarters. Her order of concerns are first, that she should be close to “such a class;” second; that the reich should ignore the family that was so important; and, last on the list, because such horrors are happening to people. This last seemingly humanitarian concern is added with a caveat: “because the same sort of adversity was happening to us.” Likewise, it seems that the woman (and all the other people in the tram) was able to go about her life so self-absorbedly, that she would be unaware of the surrounding suffering. This woman thinks that she is better than the people in the ghetto, and so has no reason to be concerned with it. Rosa ends her story comparing herself with this mindset.
Or…
Rosa describes herself as better read than the people both inside and outside the walls. She seems to describe her literacy as a valuable thing that ought to keep people from judging her. The possession of this knowledge gives her something other people should want and will never have. In this way, her knowledge was the lettuce, possessed by a woman above the conditions of the ghetto, one that could never be a part of it if only by her ability to procure fresh vegetables.
The second one is a reach, I know, but it’s late.
cbaileyb // October 5, 2008 at 11:58 pm |
What is the significance of Rosa’s writing letters in different languages?
“She wrote sometime in Polish and sometimes in English, but her niece had forgotten Polish; most of the time Rosa wrote to Stella in English. Her English was crude. To her daughter Magda she wrote in the most excellent literary Polish.” (pg. 14)
In writing in “crude english” to her niece Stella, who has forgotten Polish, we are shown how the characters have changed. Rosa is still living in the past, living in the tragedy that was her life rightly so. For Stella, by forgetting her native language is like forgetting her past. Her life was not so altered by the concentration camp as Rosa’s was. By writing to her daughter in “excellent literary Polish” we are again seeing the fact that this woman lives in the past. We are also seeing though that she was somebody in that past. By adding “excellent” and “literary” we are to understand that she is a person of some education. That if her past had been different, it would have been the knowledge that she would have shared with her daughter.
jassgroce // October 6, 2008 at 2:02 am |
Has Rosa’s opinion of Stella changed since they were in the concentration camp? How do we know? What has changed?
Rosa’s opinion of Stella has changed since they were in the concentration camp. Stella has forgotten, or seemed to have blocked out everything she went through. In the story she even tell Rosa that she needs to let some of the past go and live life. Rosa states that she is the primary reason for Stellla still being alive yet Stella treats her like another bill in her check book. Stella acts like the normal American, Rosa explains until she opens her mouth and her accent is present. Rosa is still stuck in the past and feels she needs someone to be there with her and be able to talk to about it. When Stella sends the shawl in the mail and does not register it, it sparks a tick in Rosa. Stella seems not to care about Magda like she once did. She seems to have no repect for her family and the significance of the shawl. She changes because she once knew that but now she is apart of the corporate America world. Rosa seems to be stuck inside the concentration camp to this day. She see’s the wires and flips out over them and their inprisonment. Stella see’s her as a liability now and not her aunt that took care of her through those times.
parkhannah // October 6, 2008 at 2:57 am |
Why does Rosa constantly tell Persky, “Your Warsaw isn’t my Warsaw”?
“I’m also from Warsaw! 1920 I left. 1906 I was born.” (18). Persky seems little excited that they are from same place, but Rosa went through the concentration camp while Persky was in America. Parsky seems like he might understand a little what she went through, but unable to understand her fully. Rosa is still mourning for her dead child, Magda. Rosa had to struggle to keep her small daughter alive as long as possible, knowing that the baby will not live. She had to witness her baby chlid’s death in front of her with her own eyes unable to save her. Also she still lives in her past unable to escape to reality and still locked in combat with Stella, who took Magda’s shawl and still has it. What Rosa went through was beyond description and Persky seems too independent and relaxed. Rosa thinks that he is like what he is because he didn’t have to go through what she had experienced.
fazizi2 // October 6, 2008 at 5:21 am |
The shawl in it’s self has a very unique meaing to it through out the story. The shawl is meant to be shown as a symbol, and it has many meanings. It suggests terrible danger. It means you will be murdered if you are deprived of it, as Magda was. It also means infinite shelter. It represents the violence of rape, because we realize that Magda is the result of such a crime. At the same time it represents life. But in reality it’s an old rag. And so it seems that in despair, we can take an old rag and turn it through imagination into a living child. That’s what Rosa does.
HB // October 6, 2008 at 8:58 am |
The Shawl is significant many ways it can be reason of survival or death. As the story goes along, it shows that the Shawl was the one who keeping Magda alive with its virtual nourishment, with its warmth, and with its comfort. It’s significant for Stella because of its warmth. On other side it is significant for Rosa because of Magda or as defender of her from the outside world. It’s also significant for Rosa because it carrying the memories with it. The shawl itself shows its significance by appearing again and again with its contradictable fashion.
izamojda // October 6, 2008 at 9:29 am |
10) Rosa tries to share her memories of living in the Warsaw Ghetto with her customers perhaps because it was a therapeutic way for her to cope with those memories, just like it is suggested to write out one’s feelings in a letter in order to help an individual work through an emotion in a more positive and constructive way. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem as though her customers are too receptive to her stories. “And if I saw they were in a hurry-most of them were, after I began…”(67). After she began telling her stories the customers got uncomfortable and suddenly were in quite the rush to be somewhere else.
I think it also perturbed her that the customers did not know about the tramcar that ran through the ghetto. For Rosa, the ghetto became her whole world, and it was probably then that she realized that the country she was born in, no longer recognized her as its citizen. She was less than. So, how is it that the world was blind to this tramcar? Her world had been defined, even rocked by it and yet when she mentioned it, all she got were blank stares.
Rosa continues on describing how intellectual and refined her family was, and how the slobs on the tram car, the tram to freedom, probably could not even speak Polish properly let alone recite the Aeneid by heart like her father. So, here you have the epitome of the perfect Polish family, and yet their countrymen do not consider them Poles at all.
The woman with the lettuce was just some random working woman on the tram that ran through the ghetto. Rosa remembers the head of lettuce because of its vibrant green color and how she yearned to taste it! The tram woman was unremarkable, but she had a head of lettuce, something so rare and precious to someone living in abject poverty! In her store, Rosa felt like the woman with the lettuce because her customers must have looked at her like she was some sort of slob, despite the fact that she held something precious that seemed just as unremarkable as lettuce; her stories.
sableotey // October 6, 2008 at 1:32 pm |
The significance of the shawl could be described as follows: The shawl was used for different things. One of them was to comfort Magda. Magda yearned only for the shawl. She was quiet while she was wrapped in it, and wept when it was taken away. You get a sense that this shawl was kind of a life line for Magda. She sucked on it, as if it were food, but she really didn’t eat anything, maybe this is what was keeping her from starving. Maybe this is what kept her blood circulating and her heart beating. When the shawl taken away Magda was slung against a fence and killed. The significance of her death adds up. One can conclude that her death was due to the shawl being taken away. Once Magda was gone and Rosa recovered the shawl, she acted as needy as Magda did. It seems as though Rosa was replacing Magda with the shawl. The further Rosa got away from her home, the more annoyed and uncomfortable she’d feel so maybe the shawl was comforting Rosa and keeping her safe from the outside world.
sbr291 // October 6, 2008 at 11:04 pm |
Rosa tries to share her memories of living in the Warsaw Ghetto with her customers, maybe because it was a mind of thought/feeling she had to connect with , just like it is suggested to write out one’s feelings in a letter in order to make the person through an emotion so the can get through there problems while not having to think negative. But it did seem that her customers where wanting to fix things with in them, “And if I saw they were in a hurry-most of them were, after I began…”(67). Her stories got her customers to feel uncomfortable and shortly they were in a rush to be somewhere else.
The ghetto became roses home and made her realize many things that she didn’t think of back then. So, how is it that the world was blind to this tramcar? Her world was set for her, she didn’t think of anything else, if she tried, all she got were blank stares. Rosa continues on describing how intellectual and refined her family was, and how the slobs on the tram car, the tram to freedom. Not being able to have the heart her father had. Rosa remembers the head of lettuce because of its greenish color and how she yearned to taste it. The tram women was astonishing, but she had a head of lettuce. In her store, Rosa felt like the woman with the lettuce because her customers must have looked at her like she was some sort of mess, despite the fact that she held something precious that seemed just as astonishing as lettuce.
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