The Shawl

170 Words1 Pages
In Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl, Ozick characterizes Stella as a maleficent older sister. She does this by revealing Stella’s feelings of jealousy and envy towards her baby sister, Magda. From the beginning Ozick directly tells us that Stella is jealous with, “But she was jealous of Magda.” Through the entirety of the story we are demonstrated the great bond that Rosa and Magda share, however it doesn’t demonstrate much interaction between Stella and Rosa, or Magda. This lack of interaction and abundance of interaction from Rosa to Magda, makes Stella become selfish. Later on in the story Stella takes away the shawl from Magda, which to her is much more than a shawl, it is Magda’s cloak of invisibility, her pacifier, and her will to survive.