Between Nostalgia and Self-Hatred: The Problem of Identity in Cynthia Ozick’s The Shawl

Abstract

Drawing on theoretical works by Stuart E. Rosenberg, Sander L. Gilman and Svetlana Boym, the article reconsiders Cynthia Ozick’s diptych The Shawl as an instance of narrative that problematizes the notion of Jewishness in the twentieth century in the USA and pre-WW II Poland. It is argued that the key concepts of nostalgia and self-hatred offer a new perspective on the interpretation of a text that for almost forty years has been treated as a staple work in the cannon of American Holocaust fiction.