The Shawl

The Shawl is a four-act play by David Mamet. It premiered at the Goodman Theatre New Theatre Company in Chicago in 1985. The play concerns two men, John and Charles, who plan on defrauding Miss A out of her inheritance. The play scams and deceives to the very end, while emphasising the truth repeatedly.

Background

According to Lindsay Crouse " 'David told me once that he started to write 'The Shawl' in part because people said to him, 'You always write such wonderful characters but you don't write plot,'.... So he set out to exercise plot-writing as a craft. And I think it came out beautifully. Everybody gets fooled at least once in this play.' "The New York Times noted that "while The Shawl does not pretend at realism - Mr. Mamet has called it my 'Twilight Zone' episode - it must convince the audience that an educated, middle-class woman would put her faith into a mind reader. And the psychic himself is not some gypsy in paisley but a middle-aged man who is worried about losing his young, homosexual lover."

The Shawl (Ozick)

The Shawl is a short story published by Cynthia Ozick in 1980 in The New Yorker. It tells the story of three characters: Rosa, Magda, and Stella on their march to and internment in a Nazi concentration camp. The Shawl is noted for its ability to instill in the reader the horror of the Holocaust in less than 2,000 words.

Plot Summary

The story follows Rosa, her baby Magda, and her niece Stella on their march to a Nazi Concentration camp in the middle of winter. They are described as weak and starving during the march. Stella's knees are described as "tumors on sticks." Rosa is said to be a "walking cradle" because she constantly carries Magda close to her chest wrapped in her shawl. Rosa contemplates handing Magda off to one of the villagers watching their march, but decides that the guards would most likely just shoot them both. Rosa says the shawl is "magic" when Magda sucks on it because it sustained Magda for three days and three nights without food. Stella observes that Magda looks Aryan, but Rosa sees the observation as some kind of threat to Magda. At the camp, Rosa continues to hide Magda, but is in constant fear that someone will discover and kill her. One day, Stella takes Magda's shawl away to warm herself. Without her shawl, Magda, who hadn't made a sound since the march, begins screaming for her "Ma." Rosa hears the screaming, but does not run to Magda because the guards will kill them both. Instead, she runs to get the shawl and begins waving it in the hope that Magda will see it and calm down. She is too late and watches as the Nazi guards pick Magda up and throw her into the electric fence, killing her. Rosa stuffs the shawl into her mouth to stop herself from screaming.

Cynthia Ozick

Cynthia Ozick (born April 17, 1928) is an American-Jewish short story writer, novelist, and essayist.

Biography

Cynthia Shoshana Ozick was born in New York City, the second of two children. She moved to the Bronx with her Russian-born parents, Celia (Regelson) and William Ozick, proprietors of the Park View Pharmacy in the Pelham Bay neighborhood. As a girl, Ozick helped to deliver prescriptions. Growing up in the Bronx, she remembers stones thrown at her and being called a Christ-killer as she ran past the two churches in her neighborhood. In school she was publicly shamed for refusing to sing Christmas carols. She attended Hunter College High School in Manhattan. She earned her B.A. from New York University and went on to study at Ohio State University, where she completed an M.A. in English literature, focusing on the novels of Henry James.

Ozick is married to Bernard Hallote, a lawyer. Their daughter, Rachel Hallote, is an associate professor of history at SUNY Purchase and head of its Jewish studies program. Ozick is the niece of the Hebraist Abraham Regelson. She lives in Westchester County, New York.