The most important symbol in The Shawl—and one that bridges both the short story and the novella—is the shawl itself. Its centrality to the story also means that that its meaning is complex and shifting: the shawl variously represents a mother figure, Magda, the imagination, and voicelessness. The ramifications of each of these meanings change over the course of the work. To take an example, the capacity for imagination that serves Rosa well in the concentration camp deepens her alienation from the world outside; as an object associated with Rosa’s inner world, the shawl goes from being full of good “magic” in the short story to an “idol” that in the novella keeps Rosa trapped within fantasies of her dead daughter (31).

All of the particular meanings that the shawl takes on over the course of the work are simply facets of a broader symbolism relating to life and death: Rosa’s fantasy world helps her carry on during her imprisonment but results in a kind of living death once she’s freed; the silence of the camp prisoners (symbolized by first Magda and then Rosa stuffing the shawl in their mouths) is a form of symbolic death and also a survival strategy.