Living in the past

In the book “The shawl” we discussed in class whether or not, we thought it was healthy that Rosa was writing letters to her dead daughter Magda. The class had mixed views on this topic; some thought it was a good thing for her to do, while others believed it was sick. In my opinion the fact that she’s writing letters to her daughter is neither good nor bad; it just ties into the stupor that she allowed herself to be in. She started living in isolation, poverty, and filth reverting back to the way things was in the holocaust. I believe the reason why she went back into the past, is because that where here heart, and soul truly remained. Although she moved on in the physical sense, her mind was still in the 1940s. I believe this is because the experience was extremely traumatic, and her daughter was brutally murdered. The fact that she’s writing to her dead daughter to me, is more like she’s speaking to her, since she’s in the concentration camp in her mind, she’s imagining her daughter there, because that was the last place they were together. The fact that she’s telling her daughter that she’s a doctor, and married, to me, symbolizes her dreams, and goals that she did in fact have for her child. Rosa is suffering from guilt and even more psychological problems because she’s unable to move on, and push forward with her life. Because of this traumatic event, she’s stuck in the past, which proved that the word survival cannot always be something happy, and automatic. Although someone survives, they can still be suffering with the after effect of the situation, which is exactly what happened to Rosa and the rest of her life.