I Stand Here Ironing

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I Stand Here Ironing is a short story written by Tillie Oslen, depicting the relationship and history between a mother and her eldest daughter Emily. The story begins with the mother speaking with another person, the subject of the conversation being her daughter Emily. After this conversation, the mother no longer is shown directly speaking with the person and instead begins to tell the story of her daughter's life. Throughout the story, the mother tells the the rather negative side of the relationship she has with her daughter. This leads to a major theme of the short-story that is the guilt and regret the mother faces from the birth of Emily, then Emily's childhood, and finally adolesents. The mother begins her tale of Emily at her daughter's birth. She says that she was nineteen when Emily was born, before pre-relief and WPA and after Emily's father had left. At eight months old, the mother began to leave Emily to the care of others while she worked. Due to this, the underdeveloped relationship between mother and daughter already begins to deteriorate. An instance of the mother leaving Emily to be cared by another person, is when the mother had to, for the time being, permanetly leave Emily …show more content…
The mother says that Emily did not like the nursery and that she, the mother, knew that the teacher was evil and cruel to the children. Despite this, Emily continued to go to the nursery, the mother justifying this by saying," It was the only place there was. It was the only way we could be together, the only way I could hold a job." She also mentions that Emily never directly opposed going to the nursery, always having an excuse instead, but never direction protest. Then, back in the present, the mother puts down the iron and, feeling ill, thought of what the goodness her daughter showed then, costed her now. How she could as a mother possibly demand that of her own child at such a young

I Stand Here Ironing

“Ironing” Analysis It is said that a mother’s love is unconditional. A mother will always be there to care for and support her daughter in times of great need. A mother is selfless, and will sacrifice all that has meaning in her life for the wellbeing of her daughter. Or at least, that’s what society expects. In Tillie Olson’s short story, “I Stand Here Ironing”, these common societal views are challenged when a mother recalls enduring the unspoken burdens of motherhood. Instead of presenting…

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I Stand Here Ironing

reading and our job is to go beneath the surface of the text. Dig down through the depths of context to find the underlying meaning that the author intends. It is through this journey that we discover what interpretation is and how we find it. “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is story about a mother recollecting her memories of the relationship she had with her daughter, Emily. The memory was not always a pleasant one due to the mother not taking care of Emily the way that a mother typically would…

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I Stand Here Ironing Essay

Actions shape the future and will always leave a mark, no matter how little. Using the text “Memory” by Elizabeth A. Kensinger and the text “I Stand here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, the idea effect of memories will be answered. To be more specific the idea of memory trade-off from “Memory” and the mother from “I Stand Here Ironing” will be used. Furthermore, past memories do shape us in the future because past actions are like scars, they will not go away, they either make us or break us. In the text…

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A Loaf Of Bread And I Stand Here Ironing

Though we try to be as logical as possible in making a decision, sometimes we end up making illogical choices. So, it is important to understand how people decide things to avoid bad judgments. In the short stories “ A Loaf of Bread” and “I Stand Here Ironing,” all the characters made their decisions based on their own opinions because of their situation in life. But the people outside of their lives did not see, how they should have. Leading to different outcomes. But the decisions anyone makes…

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I Stand Here Ironing By Tillie Olsen

protective love can sometimes be overbearing. “I Stand Here Ironing” is a sympathetic story. “It is a story that examines the relationship between a particular mother and her child” according to Linda Heinlein Kirschner. “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen captures overwhelming love from a mother to a…

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I Stand Here Ironing By Tillie Olsen

Tillie Olsen is known for her stories about middle class Americans, specifically around the lives of miners, farmers, laborers and housewives; those whom she called the “despised people”. (299).For instance, Olsen’s short fiction “I Stand Here Ironing” queerly focuses, in the inability of a struggling mother to overcome her own inaccuracies. The story, according to some, shows “motherhood bared” and “stripped of romantic distortion” (Frey 287). In Olsen’s story, the mother who doubles as narrator…

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I Stand Here Ironing Sonny's Blue Analysis

family by themselves. In the story “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Sonny’s Blue’s”, we will see the importance of a missing father figure in a child’s life through the setting of the story, the FOIL character of the story, and the symbolism of the characters throughout the story. Throughout the stories “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Sonny’s Blue’s”, we see the theme explain the importance of the absence of a traditional father figure.…

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Point Of View For Emily

Point of View: I stand here Ironing Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him? For a few scraps of dialogue here and there, the story is told from inside the narrator's head. In the beginning of the story someone seems to be talking to the mother. We don’t have any evidence as to who it is, but it could be someone from a school interested in helping Emily or it could be a monologue. The mother could be talking over to herself the life of her daughter…

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Literary Essay

ENGL 1302 The Darker Side of Being a Parent in “I Stand Here Ironing” “I Stand Here Ironing”, by Tillie Olsen, a short story, begins with the narrator receiving a phone call from an un-named person. The story develops a central theme of the unspoken burdens in motherhood that show the darker side of being a parent to a child. While the story starts off with a phone-call, the real conversation takes place in the narrator’s head as she struggles with the conflicts of her past that has led her…

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Stand Here Ironing Analysis

absence that she didn’t look happy. She switch a lot of living places and she didn’t have a stable childhood. Her mom then try to give her all the love, she wanted her daughter happy but it wasn’t working. That’s why the name of the story is “i stand here ironing”, because she kept going back and forth with her mom role but nothing was working. Emily struggle so much during her childhood because it was hard times, even though her mom didn’t want to put her through all that struggle she had…

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