Briar_Rose

Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose explores the theme/ideas of human endurance and survival and remembrance and yolen uses a number of techniques such as language, allegory and symbolism, which are evident in this extract. Yolen’s story is a combination of the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty and the historical events of the Holocaust. In Briar Rose, Yolen adapts the language to suit the situation and speakers in different sections of the novel. Two main characters (Josef Potocki and Becca Berlin) use different types of speech patterns and language in the novel. In the section – The Castle, Josef uses a spare (which means the use of fewer words) and heroic language when he explains the story of Gemma to Becca and Magda, which has a relationship to the theme/ idea of human endurance and survival. Yolen uses language to explain what Josef is talking about. In Josef’s story, he shows that human weakness and strength are on the same sides, a good example is Josef. At the beginning of the war, Josef was quite cowardly and he tried to pretend that he was not gay because he may receive harsh treatment. He changes when he becomes involved with the partisans and with other victims of the holocaust. When Aron jumps in the pit of dead bodies to save Gemma it is Josef who becomes courageous revives her. He becomes courageous and understands the strength of the partisan group. A good example of this is when Josef says, “Some of them were heroes, some of them were fools, and all of them were liars”. The novel is a story of survivors and heroes. and in Josef’s story when Gemma is saved, her survival and life is due to the heroic effort of the partisan group and Josef for giving her the kiss of life. Yolen uses interrextuality to shape her story because Briar Rose is compunction of three stories. Josef is the witness and the key to the mystery of who Gemma really was and where she came from. Josef tells his story of Gemma as if he is the storyteller in using third person. When Gemma tells her story, she tells it repeatedly to remind the responder of the resilience of fairy tales and her resilience. Yolen uses the theme/idea of storytelling to explain how Gemma tells her story in a more horrific way. Becca’s request that “Gemma, tell your story again”, tells the reader that the fairy tale sounds like a normal fairy tale to becca, but the reader realities that there are significant differences. Yolen uses irony to show typical the readers the viewpoint of the novel. The ending of the fairy tale, “happily ever after” is in ironic contrast to the horrific suffering of camp victims such as Gemma. the second example of irony is that Josef (the prince) is gay, not the expected heterosexual lover of the original fairy tale and because yolen uses good vs. evil to tell her story of Sleeping Beauty, that we all know as a child, but she also mixed it up as a horrific tale about pain and suffering. That fact that many of the holocaust victims have died or have been forgotten illustrates that the story is not really a happily ever after. Yolen uses many symbols in her story particularly when Gemma tells her popular version of Sleeping Beauty. The theme/idea of remembrance is used to put the horrors of war into a fairy tale recounted in a contemporary family environment. Gemma tells the story of sleeping beauty, but she has mixed the story up to tell her past, but she does this subconsciously. There are many examples of symbolism in the story and ‘many of their symbols referring to the bad fairy are references to the Nazis, e.g. “black boots” and their treatment of the victims “the briars” (rose bushes) stand for the walls, fences and barbed wire’ surrounding the concentration camps, ‘the ‘mist’ in Gemma’s fairy stands for the gas that kills the victims of the holocaust and even the sleep of the people in the castle is the sleep of death. Remembrance of the past and what was endured is important to all fairy tales and symbols often have more them one meaning. For example, the mist can also mean the imperfect knowledge of Gemma and her family and the ‘briars’ can also represent the difficulties to be overcome by love to reach the desired object. Yolen uses allegory to tell her holocaust story because the whole story is structured as an allegory. An allegory is a story within a story, and in Briar Rose, it is a fairy tale. The readers must know the traditional sleeping beauty fairy tale to understand what happened to Gemma and thousands like her. Allegory is used to explain the theme/idea of remembrance and even human endurance and survival by using the Briar Rose story to tell Gemma’s life and also adding the quest that Becca goes on to find out more about Gemma . Like many allegorical tales, it tells of the battle of good over evil, of a contented life only after difficulties and dangers have been overcome, which is where the theme/idea of human endurance and survival comes in. Jane Yolen’s Briar Rose is a powerful story which has explores ideas that yolen explains with techniques. Yolen invites us into varios aspects of the Briar Rose fairy tale and the events of the Holocaust. Josef’s story, Yolen’s story and Gemma’s story are all different, but all comes together to create one complete story.