the shawl

Over the course of the semester, we have read a number of novels in which one of the main topics has been the role of motherhood affects both the mother and the child.  I think that for every woman, being a mother is a natural necessity, and not just a social standard.  When Magda is killed in the concentration camp, Rosa   is robbed of something that every woman should be entitled to.  Her choice that she chose not to try to save Magda sticks with her, and becomes, what I think, the internal reasoning behind Rosa's supposed craziness.  The fact that she uses Stella as a scapegoat prolongs her eventual mental meltdown.  I think that she is permanently stripped of any sense of fulfillment, as the Nazi forces who she had no control over took her only child.  I think that Rosa doesn't know whether to blame herself or Stella for what happened, and that forced her to live with the insecurity of potentially never being a mother again.  I also believe that even if she were to have another child, it would just be a constant reminder of the horrible, traumatic events that she experienced.  This truly would mitigate her survival of the holocaust, knowing that a huge part of her has been taken, and can never return.  The fact that she can't do anything to save Magda, or replace her, makes her feel insecure that her life is even worth living.  I think that having faced such a crossroads in her life, in such an extreme circumstance, the scars left on Rosa had made the pain nearly insurmountable, thus mitigating her survival of a massive genocide.