<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> While Holocaust historiography and literary criticism have typically been male-centred, on the presumption that the experiences of women and men were essentially identical, the aim of this study is to investigate gendered perceptions and representations of the Holocaust and its aftermath in Cynthia Ozick’s two-part fictional narrative The Shawl. The narrative focuses on the gender-based suffering of women and the murder of their innocent children and includes a brief account of a mother’s witnessing of her daughter’s electrocution in a concentration camp. The second part of the narrative represents an extended exposition of that atrocity’s psychological toll on the mother’s postwar life and her sense of being suspended in a liminal space between life and death, plagued by the constant intrusion of the Holocaust into her life.</p></abstract>

While Holocaust historiography and literary criticism have typically been male-centred, on the presumption that the experiences of women and men were essentially identical, the aim of this study is to investigate gendered perceptions and representations of the Holocaust and its aftermath in Cynthia Ozick’s two-part fictional narrative The Shawl. The narrative focuses on the gender-based suffering of women and the murder of their innocent children and includes a brief account of a mother’s witnessing of her daughter’s electrocution in a concentration camp. The second part of the narrative represents an extended exposition of that atrocity’s psychological toll on the mother’s postwar life and her sense of being suspended in a liminal space between life and death, plagued by the constant intrusion of the Holocaust into her life.

“Witness Through the Imagination”: Gendered Perceptions of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath in Cynthia Ozick’s the Shawl

Politehnica University of Timișoara 2, Victoriei Square, Timișoara 300006,

Gender Studies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

While Holocaust historiography and literary criticism have typically been male-centred, on the presumption that the experiences of women and men were...

“Witness Through the Imagination”: Gendered Perceptions of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath in Cynthia Ozick’s the Shawl

Published Online: Mar 14, 2017

Page range: 239 - 251

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/genst-2017-0016

Keywords
gender, Holocaust, testimony, trauma

© by Roxana Ghiță

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

“Witness Through the Imagination”: Gendered Perceptions of the Holocaust and Its Aftermath in Cynthia Ozick’s the Shawl

Published Online: Mar 14, 2017

Page range: 239 - 251

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/genst-2017-0016

Keywordsgender, Holocaust, testimony, trauma

© by Roxana Ghiță

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
gender, Holocaust, testimony, trauma