The Impact Of Trauma On Remembrance In Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl

Abstract

The Horrifying collective memories of a community and the horrific events may be maintained and passed on for future generations to learn through various medias like memorialized in historical items, pictures, tales, and monuments. Holocaust survivors’ and victims’ collective stories have proliferated in the post-Holocaust era, helping generations who were not present for these tragic events to comprehend history. This essay traces the concept of post-memory, which includes the effects of major experiences that last beyond the first generation. The study finds that the stories that allude to a parent’s background have a “belatedness.” This essay provided an analytical articulation of Cynthia Ozick’s Holocaust memory story “The Shawl” as a source of post-memory of suffering to future generations. It investigated the narrative's capacity for transformation to create a historical repertoire for a generation that is not a victim generation. It crystallized a painful experience that was shared by an entire community, giving future generations a feeling of identity and belonging. Through the tragic history of the Jewish people, In The Shawl Ozick cleverly weaves together the personal life of a Jewish character and the national history of the Jewish people to caution readers to seriously reconsider the meaning of human coexistence and to actively seek out a strategy for global harmony.