even more. She wants more than anything to take care of her child and live a normal life‚ but she can’t. The narrator lived in the restrictive Victorian time period‚ and experienced how difficult it is to have your voice heard as a woman. “I Stand Here Ironing” written by Tillie Olsen is a short story about a mother who has a daughter during the Great Depression‚ and the father leaves her to care for
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Jessica Hyde‚ Eng 1302-007‚ 9/4/11 For my paper‚ I chose to write about the short story‚ “I Stand Here Ironing‚” by Tillie Olsen. In the story‚ a mother of a nineteen-year-old girl named Emily is ironing some clothes‚ as she is pondering a recent message she received from one of Emily’s counselors or teachers; a message of concerns with wanting to help her daughter. The mother begins to think back to the very beginning of Emily’s life. She starts stating all the various events that took
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Paper – I Stand Here Ironing Kloss‚ Robert J. "Balancing the Hurts and the Needs: Olsen’s ’I Stand Here Here Ironing‚’." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 15.1-2 (Mar. 1994): 78-86. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Jeffrey W. Hunter and Deborah A. Schmitt. Vol. 114. Detroit: Gale Group‚ 1999. Literature Resource Center. Web. 23 Mar. 2012. Kloss’s‚ "Balancing the Hurts and the Need Olsen’s ’I Stand Here Ironing’"‚
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“I Stand Here Ironing” written by Tillie Olsen‚ is a short story that focuses closely on a mother’s struggle to raise her daughter during the Great Depression while balancing motherly duties and sees pasts her mistakes. The family is forced to learn how to come to terms with the hardships and tries to move past them. As the narrator reminisces about her nineteen years old daughter’s childhood throughout the story‚ she wonders if she had not been so self absorbed‚ could have her daughter’s life been
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The point of view and narrative structure of I Stand Here Ironing‚ by Tillie Olson‚ completely affects the theme of the story in many ways. The theme of the story is the powerful bond between mother and daughter. The point of view would have been less personal if it had been changed. The narrative structure consists of flashbacks‚ which are very valuable to the story and the way it is meant to be read and understood. Since the mother is talking about her daughter’s history‚ it makes the story more
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A Theme is Controlled Though the Setting and the Atmosphere In the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen there is an atmosphere which has an overwhelming feeling of torment and a sense of regret. Taking place during the 1930s and 1940s a single mother has to cope with the Great Depression‚ WWII‚ and the feminist movement of the 1950s while raising her first born daughter Emily. A conflict is created by the lack of understanding the single teenage mother has for raising her first
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A good example of Modernism is a short story called "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen. This story not only portrays gender roles but also family roles. Here the narrator is a mother giving the reader a glimpse into her life‚ choices she made as a mother‚ and being a single parent. Through her defense of her situation‚ she exposes to the reader the underlying insecurities that riddle her mind about her mothering. The tale opens with the narrator explaining the pain she feels when she is
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“I Stand Here Ironing” Tillie Olsen’s I Stand Here Ironing addresses the issue of a mother’s guilt over how her child turns out and develops into a grown woman. Although she blames herself for the daughter’s problems‚ is it really her fault? While this short story is obviously about the mousy daughter‚ the mother often mentions how she feels guilty for the way her daughter Emily is‚ for the things she (the mother) did and did not do. The ideal mother-daughter relationship is not like the one
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May 5‚ 2012 Outline “I Stand Here Ironing” A. Plot: The story begins with a woman ironing her daughters dress. It causes her to recount the life she as provided for her daughter Emily. As she considers her actions she wishes that she had done some things differently. Unfortunately‚ the depression era had left her with very few choices if any at all. So to survive and provide for her children the mother‚ abandoned by her husband‚ had unintentionally‚ not protected nor not made the best
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it places an enormous psychological weight upon a daughter’s lifelong character and well-being. However‚ when the inescapable struggles of economic depression and single motherhood arise‚ such a bond is sacrificed. Throughout Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”‚ a mother looks back at her daughter‚ Emily’s‚ childhood and contemplates the positive and negative elements of their relationship that have derived as a result of her inability to provide proper care and participation in her daughter’s life
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