Briar Rose
Briar Rose by Jane Yolen is a heart-wrenching story of Sleeping Beauty intertwined with the horrors of World War II. The novel contains all the elements of the classic Sleeping Beauty: the castle, thorns, princess, and a tale of death and awakening from eternal sleep. Yolen compared a story that fictitiously occurred during World War II with Sleeping Beauty, which allowed one of the main characters, Gitl Mandelstein, to indirectly tell her horrifying experiences during the war. The story beings with Gitl, or Gemma (as she is referred to by her granddaughters), in a nursing home. Her granddaughters Silvia, Shauna, and Becca went to visit her, for she was on her deathbed. She began telling them the story of Sleeping Beauty, a story which she had told them throughout their childhood, although this time was different. She told her grandchildren that she was in fact Briar Rose. Gemma did not go into detail, but made her granddaughter Becca promise to discover everything about her past. This is shown in the following quote: "’Promise me you will find the castle. Promise me you will find the prince. Promise me you will find the maker of the spells‘" (Yolen 20). Soon after, Gitl died.
Symbolism is a technique greatly used in this novel. The story of the sleeping beauty Briar Rose symbolizes the actual story of Gitl’s near death experiences throughout World War II. Another technique that Yolen used was onomatopoeia: "...fear and anticipation so mingled with the woosh of the rocking seat being lifted, that the story was forgotten" (129). The use of the word woosh describes the sound of a rocking seat on a ferris wheel. Briar Rose is a novel with a very dark theme. It is set mainly in the present, but the author often uses the flashback technique to show past events that are of extreme importance to the novel. A quote that depicts the dark theme of the novel is: "’Five thousand corpses?’ Josef murmured, still not believing" (Yolen 149). That quote is also an example of the flashback technique. Josef was recalling a horrifying experience during World War II. Repetition is also used. "The music still played" (Yolen 142) was repeatidly used on one page of the novel. This quote symbolized the fact that even though many horrors were occurring throughout the world during World War II, the music still played and life went on as normal. It is a very power
Some topics in this essay:
War II,
Sleeping Beauty,
Briar Rose,
Josef Becca,
Gitl Mandelstein,
Rose Gemma,
war ii,
world war ii,
World War,
briar rose,
Rose Yolen,
world war,
II Symbolism,
sleeping beauty,
Gitl Gemma,
story sleeping beauty,
story sleeping,
sleeping beauty allowed,
symbolism technique,
story world,
dark theme,
beauty allowed,
beauty briar rose,
music played,
occurred world war,
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Approximate Word count = 809
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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