Original Definition: Great Destruction Resulting in the Extensive Loss of Life, Especially

Briar Rose

In this module, the Board of Studies requires that you undertake a “detailed analysis of the text”. Therefore, by the end of this unit, you need to have knowledge and understanding of every element of this novel; you must know it inside and out, back to front!

These are the elements of the novel you will have analysed in order to Closely Study Briar Rose.

Context

1. Historical Context

The Holocaust

Original definition: great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.

20th century definition: Genocide of European Jews and others by the Nazis during World War II.

History: The Holocaust refers to the period from January 30, 1933 to May 8, 1945, when the war in Europe ended. During this time, Jews in Europe ere subjected to increasingly harsh persecution of 6,000,000 million Jews (approx 1.5 million of these were children), and the destruction of at least 5,000 communities. These deaths represented 2/3 of the European Jewry. They were victims of Germany’s deliberate and systematic attempt to eradicate the entire Jewish population of Europe; a plan Hitler called the “Final Solution”.

1. Fairytales – Briar Rose (aka Sleeping Beauty) – you need to know the fairy tale’s origins and meaning.

Fairy Tales – Briar Rose

Origin: the earliest recorded version of Sleeping Beauty appears as “Troylus and Zellandine” in a 14th century prose narrative called “Perceforest”; the Grimm’s story of “sleeping beauty” is considered a truncated version of Charles Perrault’s “Sleeping Beauty in the Wood”. The Grimms’ story has a narrative integrity that has made it more appealing than Perrault’s tale, perpetually re-written and adapted, the story has been retold, most recently as a Holocaust tale by Jane Yolen.

The name Briar Rose is therefore another name for Sleeping Beauty. There have been many versions of the tale, which not many people know about, and they haven’t always been for little children, they were scarier and saucier than Disney-style and were told to a wider audience.

Meaning:

Yolen has taken the story of Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose) and developed the parallel stories of two women: Becca searching for her grandmother’s story, and Gemma’s story in the extermination camp of Chelmno and afterwards with the partisans of Poland during World War II.

Plot

The novel, Briar Rose is about a woman and her promise to her Grandmother to find out where she came from, about the story “Briar Rose” or “Sleeping Beauty”, which is inter-twined throughout the novel, her grandmother’s ‘castle’ and Becca’s encounters whilst trying to find out the truth about the Holocaust and her Grandmother.

There are two plots in the novel, Briar Rose.

The 1st plot = Present Day

This plot follows Becca’s search for the truth of Gemma’s past.

2nd plot = Fairy Tale, Set in the past during Becca’s childhood

This plot follows Gemma’s telling of Briar Rose to her 3 granddaughters.

Parallels between Gemma’s Life and the Fairytale Briar Rose

Including Quotes

Fairy Tale / Reality
Briar Rose / e.g. briar rose = gemma because:
she is given the nickname ‘princess’
her hair is red – “crown of red hair”
on her death whispering “I am Briar Rose”
Castle / The schloss – at Chelmno which the Nazis took over extermination camp.
“she spoke of the castle, the schloss”
Bad fairy
“Not the bad fairy. Not the one in black with big black boots and silver eagles on her hat” (pg. 19) / Hitler and his Nazi soldiers
Good fairies / The allied forces OR partisans
The curse
“dead from the exhaust piped in” pg 210 (Gassed) / -curse was being Jewish and it was to be killed by being gassed in the trucks on the way out of Chelmno
-“the final solution”
-Jewish, gay, Gypsies
“Uncles, aunties, cousins, family… I curse you Briar Rose, your father, mother, cousins, aunts”
“everyone slept…and all kinds of citizens”
Who do these people represent in reality? / Everybody – all Jewish people
Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals were killed.
Mist
“a fog, an exhaust”
“dead from the exhaust piped in”
“a mist covered the entire kingdom”
“keep all thoughts of mist away, I forbid you to think of it” / e.g. pg 43 Gemma describes the mist as “an exhaust” - this directly relates to the way Gemma was gassed, in a truck and a hose was connected from the exhaust pipe of the truck
- gas – the pipe was put into the truck
Truck/Van / “it had a tin ceiling and a tin floor covered with latticework”
100 years
“Is 100 years a lot?”
“100 years is forever” / 100 years = death
OR
It felt like it took forever to be found
“100 years is forever”
Briar hedge/thorns
“a briary hedge began to grow, with thorns as sharp as barbs” / Briar hedge/thorns = barbed wire, fence
“higher and higher the thorny bush grew until it covered…” – this symbolises the spread of concentration camps
The peasant
“he said when they go in, they come out but its not the same” meaning they are dead, “better not, the peasant said, whoever goes in doesn’t come out” / The peasant was someone who Josef sat with to find out about the camps, literally.
Prince
“I am called prince”, “and I shall never forget the dark prince who kissed me awake”, / “I am alive my dear prince, you have given me back the world”
The prince is Josef – ties in with his name where he used to live.
Fairytale ending
Troops
“The prince came riding by with his troops, saw the hedge and tried to see over it…” / Josef and the partisans – coming out of the woods to save Gemma although they said it could not be done.
White birch trees
“once it was believed birch trees housed souls of the dead”, “on either side of the path white birch trees gleamed like the souls of the new dead” / Refers to people who are dead – their gleaming white – innocent? Souls still living on with them, also their bodies in the pits covered in dew lifeless but so bare and innocent – Birch was a partisan (boy)
Awakening
The bed part  linked to the truck with the floor latticework / When Gemma survives the gassing and is woken by the avenger and Josef
-the kiss of life  sleeping beauty
-“he put his hand right into the thorns”
-“and as he did so giving her breath for breath she awoke”
-“that he put his mouth on hers and as he did so it was in Josef’s mouth that she, at last spluttered and coughed”
Baby girl / Gemma’s daughter is the baby girl (Becca’s mother)
“I am with child”

Narrative Structure + Intertextuality

Fairytale Genre

Fairytales have come to be regarded as children’s short stories in their modern, sanitised revamping; however, they were originally intended for a more varied audience often including a moralistic overtones more suited to adult readers or designed to frighten children into submissive patterns of behaviour.

In traditional fairy stories one starts with the helpless maiden, especially with Sleeping Beauty. One knows she is going to be rescued, however one interesting pattern that develops in fairytales is that the rescuer of the persecuted or bewitched person has himself or herself been bewitched or persecuted.

Fairytales have always hovered between the fully-grown poetic imagination and the imagination of children. Our present uncertainty about the proper place in lives of children can be explained by their odd history in written literature.

Briar Rose (Novel)

Briar Rose has a complex yet tightly constructed narrative structure. Yolen interweaves at least three major strands into her plot, and uses voices of different types to add an interesting variety to the narrative; the voices of Becca and her sisters, of Josef Potocki, of the priest (Father Stashau), of Magda, of Stand and other parents’ recount.

Two parallel stories are developed simultaneously:

1. Gemma’s whole version of the Briar Rose tale which Becca recognises to be a metaphor for Gemma’s life (Pg 17). Effects:

• the placement of segments of the never-completed fairy story at intervals through the narrative adds suspense and mystery to the novel
• More importantly, the fairy tale references seem to deepen the story of Gemma’s Holocaust sufferings and relate them to the whole cultural tradition – of good and evil, of suffering and rescue, and of seeking and eventually finding.

1. The narrative of Becca’s determined quest to make sense of this story after her grandmother’s death
2. A third stage of Becca’s developing relationship with fellow journalist, Stan is presented more lightly, but suggests that, for Becca, a happy ending is likely. Her own happy ever after tale springs out of her grandmother’s life story, and make the bitter sadness of the Holocaust easier for the readers to bear. Gemma’s story itself was one of a happy ‘normal’ ending with a supportive family.

Above all, it is Gemma’s story. Gemma’s voice reaches the reader most through her unusual retelling of the old Briar Rose fairytale. This is so different in details from the traditional version that visiting children are outraged or terrified after being told the story.

As in all good fairy tales the older sisters – if not exactly “wicked” are at times unsympathetic to hearing this same favourite story repeated countless times. It is the youngest of the three sisters who shows the required goodness and empathy.

There are three distinct sections of the novel: Home, Castle, and Home Again.

Plot 1 –This includes the growing relationship story of Becca and Stan that hopefully leads her to her own “lived happily ever after”.

Plot 2 –This is a very interesting narrative structure because the reader can hear Gemma’s ‘voice’ and getsto know her character despite the fact that she is dead in present day. The use if italics are a clear sign/device that clearly indicates to the reader the time change from present to the past.

Home(Chapters 1-24) Home follows plot 1 & 2

Home has the two narratives running as alternative chapters – time past running simultaneously with time present. The reader is given glimpses of Becca as a child listening to the story of Sleeping Beauty and each glimpse seems to move ahead in months and years.

Castle(Chapters 25-30) Castle follows aspects of plot 1 + aspects of the past.

It is present day in Poland and Josef is telling his story in 3rd person including dialogue. He is telling his story/experiences of the Holocaust/past that included Gemma. * There are no chapters involving Gemma’s telling of Briar Rose*

Home Again (Chapters 31-33) Home Again follows plots 1&2, in this section, Gemma’s Briar Rose story is completed (chapter 31+32)

Chapter 33 sees the main plot line being resolved too, as Becca returns home and has discovered the truth of Gemma’s story (her journey and the ‘story’ is at an end) and Becca and Stan get together – this is clear from the last line of the novel.

Characters

There are 3 main characters in the novel: Gemma, Becca and Josef.

Gemma (Ksiezniczka – meaning Princess)

Gemma is the focal character in the novel. She gives the romantic fairytale of magic and happy-ever-after a greater significance by providing the analogy between the darker concepts of sleeping beauty and the horrors of the Holocaust.

She assumes the traditional role of the story teller as she nurtures the children’s hearts and dreams with the story of sleeping beauty. She appears in the story in her own right only in chapter 2, when she is dying in a nursing home, and in The Castle, the section by Josef. She drifts into consciousness and still attempts to remember the story, distressing her granddaughters. Becca recognises she is purposeful in this attempt, and she eventually makes the central claim of her life: “I was the princess in the castle in the sleeping woods. And there came a great dark mist and we all fell asleep. But the prince kissed me awake. Only me”. Becca promises to find the castle, Gemma says it’s her legacy which is all she has to give, finally claming she is Briar Rose.

She shows much love and determination, but her life story is shown only in a handful of photographs, artefacts and papers in her wooden box. From these clues Becca leads the reader to a fuller understanding. By the nature of the story it can never be complete. Her own account of her early years is never given to us, nor are her thoughts revealed, except in her actions.

Gemma essentially represents the hidden millions whose stories were destroyed with their lives. She is thus an archetypal figure – the valiant mother, the miraculous survivor.

Becca

For most of its length, the novel is told through Becca’s point of view. It is her quest, her promise to her dying grandmother to be fulfilled. She is created as a journalist, one who has certain skills in discovering facts, in finding contacts and articulating what she finds.

Love, loyalty and tenacity – these are her defining characteristics. Readers are shown these through her actions, her thought and her words, particularly in the way she relates to her parents. She is shrewd and quick to understand and learn, but her empathy – not just with her grandmother, but with her father and the nurses – which makes her out as one who understands through her emotions as well as her intellect.

Josef

Conveniently constructed to be attractive to men and women, he holds the key to Gemma’s past, which Becca has never been able to open. When Becca locates him she can find the fullness of understanding that she seeks – she can unravel the secrets of her origins.

Josef is careful to debunk any ideas of glamorous, heroic partisans: “you must understand that this is a story of survivors, not heroes”. He remains conscious of his own guilt and presents himself as a drifter, but emerges as a natural thinker and planner when he joins the partisans. He is given the nickname Prince because of his land-owning family. He is introduced by Father Stashau.

Before he was sent to the labour camp, Sachenhausen, Josef had never heard of it. He had paid little attention to persecution of homosexuals in his previous pleasure-seeking life, and as a young man had thought himself immune.

Josef details for Becca the situation in Germany and in the labour camps. He is shown as an accidental hero, who links with the partisans when he finds and joins some prisoners planning an escape. His adventures with the partisans enable him to be come a man of honour, a hero. He is the one who persuades the rest to attempt to save some of the Chelmno victims – and is thus responsible for helping save Gemma, the Ksiezniczka. He helps Gemma escape after her husband, Aron has died and she is pregnant.

Shana + Sylvia

The two sisters, at times almost appear to be the proverbial ‘ugly sisters’ in the Cinderella story when they side against Becca and try to impose their attitudes onto her. They are redeemed from this because of Becca’s love for them and thus the reader endures their often petulant and obstructive behaviour. We forgive them ultimately because they have lost the innocence of childhood and grown into cynical adults dressed in designer clothes whose priorities seem to have gone astray. This is most evident in their behaviour at the nursing home and at the funeral. Their role is predominantly to provide a contrast to Becca, who has held onto her innocence in her belief in the fairytale.

Dr Jerold and Mrs Eve Berlin

These two rarely enter the novel although they are Becca’s parents and Eve is Gemma’s daughter, the child she was pregnant with when Josef helped her leave Poland in 1944. Their role in the novel is only as peripheral characters. When Gemma dies, Eve knows very little about her.

Stan

Stan is Becca’s love interest, and he helps her search and encourages her to persist. He is her ‘prince’, which is cemented in the final scene of the main narrative, with a happy-ever-after metaphor being maintained until the end.

Magda

Magda contains the best traits of her family members when Becca is in Poland. She acts a guardian, guide and mentor facilitating in Becca’s search. She picks up subtleties that Becca does not have access to and provides Becca with the answers.

Partisans (Jewish) – all woodsmen – the women too were “careful, quiet and strong” – couldn’t be tracked in the forests.

The Avenger (Aron)

Aron was 23, he went to medical school, experienced death, wanted to fight evil, his family was burned alive, married Gemma, Becca’s grandfather, loved by Josef and Gemma, “Angel’s face surrounded by a halo of gold curls”, Jewish, died a heroic death