The plot of this story does not adhere to the conventional plot line. I feel that the Shawl’s plot came to early. Magda dies to early in the novel. I would have wanted her to be living just a little while longer so that we can build some sort of relationship with her. In my opinion, all we know of this fifteen-month-old baby is what Rosa tells of her daughter. Magda never lives long enough to see life through the eye of the reader. This takes away from a conventional plot line. Even though the book leads us up to the point of her death, the rest of the story is pretty much boring and it takes away from the reader’s attention. In developing the characters throughout the story we begin with Magda. She is the youngest of them all and she is the first to die as well. She continues to be talked about by Stella and Rosa throughout the story. Magda ends up to be a very important part of Rosa’s life before and after her death. Stella was a selfish and jealous girl who did not like Magda because she thought that she got all the attention from Rosa. Stella then gets angry with Magda and steals the Shawl. I believe she has come a long way in life compared to the way she was as a teenager growing up. She has gone on with her life as she has since been to college and she is a more mature person. She even returned the Shawl back to Magda’s mother. Now Rosa is a mother who has lost a daughter to a brutal death. She also has smashed up her own store due to what she calls an evil world. She is convinced that she has nothing else to do with her life now that it is destroyed. She goes on to meet Simon Persky and he tries to comfort her and even asked her out on a date. Her panties are stolen and she tries hard to find her panties than she does finding the Shawl. I believe Rosa was in a state of depression because of the loss of her child and her store. She has little understanding of the Polish language and she tries to run away ...
