Characters & Their Annotations
This character is described as "always cold" after an incident involving the title garment.
Who is Stella?
The story takes place in this type of location, characterized by barracks and roll-call arenas.
What is a concentration camp?
The repetition of "always cold, always" is an example of this rhetorical device.
What is repetition?
Rosa's constant efforts to protect Magda using the shawl highlight this central theme.
What is maternal love or the fierce instinct to protect offspring?
This is described as having a "magic" ability to nourish an infant, representing a desperate hope for sustenance.
What is the shawl?
Despite her physical frailty, this character's "fearful joy" at hearing her child's laugh reveals a deep human instinct for life.
Who is Rosa?
This feature of the landscape is where Magda is ultimately thrown.
What is the electrified fence?
The phrase "pencil legs" is an example of this literary device.
What is a metaphor?
The excerpt demonstrates the profound difficulty of maintaining humanity and normal emotional responses under these extreme conditions.
What are the dehumanizing effects of the Holocaust or the struggle to survive?
The "jolly light" in the roll-call arena contrasts with the darkness of the barracks. The light symbolizes this.
What is deceptive appearance, false hope, or danger?
The excerpt describes this character moving forward on "little pencil legs," scribbling this way and that.
Who is Magda?
The "ash-stippled wind" subtly but chillingly points to the presence of these structures nearby.
What are the crematoriums?
The description of the ash-stippled wind making a "clown" out of the shawl is an example of this.
What is personification?
The narrative suggests that even in the face of unimaginable horror, there is an inherent human drive to do this.
What is to survive or cling to life?
Magda's newfound ability to vocalize ("clamor") after a long period of silence symbolizes this.
What is a resurgence of life, spirit, or individuality?
Despite her physical frailty, this character's "fearful joy" at hearing her child's laugh reveals a deep human instinct for life.
Who is Rosa?
The "barracks opening, where the light began" suggests this transition in the setting.
What is the transition from the relative confinement of the barracks to the open, yet dangerous, roll-call arena?
The repeated emphasis on Magda being "silent" contrasts sharply with her sudden "howling," creating this literary effect.
What is irony?
When Magda is "devoid of any syllable" for so long, it speaks to this theme of how extreme trauma can suppress a person's very essence.
What is the loss of voice or identity when in the face of danger or trauma?
The rats "looking for carrion" and Magda being "as wild as one of the big rats" symbolize this for Magda.
What is a dehumanizing struggle for survival?
The narrator describes this character with a "coldness of hell," a detail that helps reveal their inner state of starvation.
Who is Stella?
The mention of "ash-stippled wind" provides a subtle but chilling detail about the atmosphere of the camp.
What is the presence of crematoriums or the aftermath of burning?
This is the literary device shown when Rosa feels both "fearful joy" and astonished at the same time.
What is an oxymoron?
Rosa's immediate action to put the shawl in her own mouth to stifle her scream after Magda's death shows how deeply the instinct for this has become ingrained in her.
What is survival, even at the expense of mourning?
The image of Magda resembling a "butterfly touching a silver vine" at the end can be seen as symbolizing this.
What is the fragility of life or a moment of transcendent beauty amidst death?