Close Study Of a text: Briar Rose Jane Yolen’s novel ‘Briar Rose’ is a witness to the struggles of people in both good and bad times. We see the characters from the past struggle with forces of evil and we see the characters of present struggle with the quest to find the truth and comes to terms with it. The text ‘Briar Rose is written in fairy tale made to potray an allegorical story of the holocaust, Jane Yolen does associate this with childrens stories as they often contain moral lessons on conflicts between Good and Evil, Love, Hate and explores the themes of courage and endurance, heroism, and Good and Evil.
Through complex narrative structure and metaphor of the fairy tale, Yolen helps us to understand the struggles of Gemma, her friends and family in ‘Briar Rose’. The three main struggles we explore are; it is through Gemma’s past we learn about the horrific events lead by nazi’s and concentraion camp, Gemma coming to terms with the events and how she responded, and Gemma making her past bearable. Gemma’s first struggle was telling her story, although written is fairy tale as that is all she could remember. “I honest dont think she remembered….
It had all become a fairytale to her. But it was all there, buried” (quote from Becca to Josef about her grandma, Gemma) ·Gemma is a story teller. She uses the story Briar Rose or Sleeping Beauty to pass on her personal history to her family. She used the fairy tale to impart the truth because her experience is too traumatic for her to talk openly about. “Its like the story is…. like a metaphor”. This deepens our understanding of ouselves and the world as we come to an understanding of personal history. Becca’s chosen profession as a journalist means that she seeks the truth in a story and she promises Gemma that she will find the prince and Schloss (castle) “Promise me you will find the castle. Promise me you will find the prince…. ” This deepens our understanding of ourselves and the world as we learn about the importance of seeking the truth about the world we live in. ·The Partisans stories keep their courage strong and their spirits high. ‘They filled themselves with such stories, never mentioning that all stries ended in death’. This deepends our understanding of ourselves and the world as we learn about the importance of ot being a bystander in life. ·Josef is able to offer Becca the full and truthful details of Gemma’s past and an insight nto the plight of Polish Jews and Resistance for the reader…. “This is a story of survivors, not heroes”. This deepens our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in as we learn the true horror of the nazi plan to exterminate the jew and trauma suffered by the victims. Another struggle that the charcters face is how Gemma responded. Gemma was one of the victims of the nazi’s torture but also a survivor, as were Josef one of the other charcters.
Gemma cannot remember who she was after amlost dying and they name her princess. So she begins to tell the story Briar Rose constantly repeating, ‘I am Briar Rose’. Knowing this we can see how many charcters repsponded, Josef was haunted by the past and remembered; “How life was and how it could never be again… “. Josepf however found the courage to tell Becca the true story about Gemma and not the fairytale. This relates to people and their strugggles in life as there are many people that are victims of horrific events but afraid of how people would respod to the truth.
Throughout the text and knowing Gemmas struggle and how she responded we also learn about courage. This gives the readers courage to tell their story openly or share their experiences. Gemma third struggle was also to make her pst bearble. Afetr surving the actions done by the nazi’s, Gemma had to learn to carry and move on. A theme that relates to this is endurance, this seen throughout the textx as no matter what nazi’s did Gemma, Josef, and the other characters never gave up against nazi’s and always tried to escape.
We also see courage and endurance through Becca as no matter what she learns she still carrys on to find the truth. In life we can relate as people struggle deal with and come to terms with Good and Evil, and Love and Hate. This text shows that in life there are obstacles and struggles but we too can find courage and endurance to carry on. In the text we see Good and Evil throughout the charcters as they struggle to come to terms with the past and prepare for the future.
In this text the good we see is Gemma and Josef as they inspire others ti share their story, and Becca who uncoverd the hidden events of the nazi’s and concentration camps. The good is also the priest who although was a witness to events stayed at Chelmo as he thought there was still alot of work to be dones and he had alot of people to save. The evil we see in the text is the nazi’s but also the bystanders. Though they never took part in any of the horrific actions they never attempted to standup against it even though they knew it was wrong, they were too worried for them and what would happen to them.
In conclusion, through writing this in fairytale mode, it does tell the story of the holocaust and althought the details are horrific and gruesome it does show the moral lesson between good and evil, and love and hate. Although the moral is unclear to children, readers understand the moral straight away. It is convince and motivate survivors of the holocaust to tell their stories. They want to inform and enlighten so that the suffering and injustice is not forgotten. It shows the struggles of people through bad and good times.
