Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl"

In Cynthia Ozick's "The Shawl," the narrator is using the third person omniscient point of view, this point of view is used to jump between the character's thoughts and actions.  Magda is an infant suffering and on the verge of death in a WWII Nazi concentration camp.  In spite of her Mother Rosa's normal desire to not let her child suffer the fact is that she is starving and she cannot produce milk to feed her daughter.  Rosa's other daughter Stella a fourteen year old is jealous of Magda, the narrator uses third person omniscient point of view to show this, "Stella wanted to be wrapped in a shawl, hidden away."  Ozick uses third person point of view professionally, she doesn't overwhelm the reader by "jumping" too much between characters.  This story's narration is absolutely heartbreaking because it displays how each character is suffering individually and also as a family unit, wanting the other to be saved.  Ozick's writing of "The Shawl" is her way to display the struggle of her people, she had to survive her own struggles in America surrounded by anti-Semitic people in her own life.  She does an outstanding job of describing the struggles of her characters to her readers, Ozick's ability to describe thought, worries, smells, torture, despair, and love makes this story extremely painful and powerful.