It is said that the inner workings of a woman's mind are truly an enigma, and I tend to agree. At any given moment, women's hopes, dreams, silent sufferings, internal struggles, and undisclosed desires can play a role in how they live their lives and do what they do. In addition to these complicated aspects of being a woman, becoming a mother can completely change a woman's perspective on many things, as it did for me. Through the author's use of setting, symbolism, and dynamic characters, the allegorical nature of some literary stories provides insight into the plight of women - which can be interpreted differently by different people. I myself, as a woman and mother, can sympathize with the fictional but seemingly realistic "round" female characters in the stories The Shawl, A Jury of Her Peers, The Worn Path and Two Kinds, whereas a woman who isn't a mother, or a man might not develop the same type of empathy. In The Shawl, Rosa is motivated by the undeniable force of motherly love and attempts to hide Magda for as long as she can, to protect her daughter from danger. Even though Rosa is aware that she will inevitably suffer a dark fate, as the story says "Rosa knew that Magda would die very soon" (267), she continues to try to shelter her child in the shawl. The shawl is a symbol of the overall quality of a mother's love and how its absence can have tragic consequences. The descriptive details of the setting, as well as established character traits, such as Magda silently suffering from an infestation of lice, or the way the characters learn to appease their hunger by "drinking the taste of a finger in the mouth" (267) make the story heartbreaking to imagine having to experience such horror...... middle of paper ......ht I didn't think she was a good player, but in my mind was encouraging her to do her very better when I saw that she was perhaps slacking off. Her perspective differed from mine, similar to the difference in perspective between Jing Mei and her mother. If I had read these stories before becoming a mother, I probably would have interpreted the character's fate differently. My heart may not have sunk into my chest like it did when I read about how Rosa had to watch her daughter die in such a horrible way, or experience Phoenix's fight. What different people get from these stories may depend on their existing views on life in general; they may not identify with or develop the same type of empathy for the characters in the story as I do. Overall I'm grateful, I believe being a wife and mother helps me better understand stories like these..