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
Premium Mother Family Interpersonal relationship
The mother in the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” and the mother in the poem “Daystar” are very important characters. The mother in “I stand Here Ironing” has a negative personality. She is very powerless. On page 80‚ the mother says‚ “You think because I am her mother I have a key‚ or that in some way you could use me as a key?” This shows just because she is the mother that doesn’t mean she has this magic to help. She has a very negative attitude instead of being happy. Her place in society
Premium Woman Family Mother
Reading Log Summary: "I stand here ironing" is about a mother reflecting on the past she shared with her daughter Emily. Their life consisted of many unfortunate events beginning with Emily’s father abandoning them at a very young age. The mother couldn’t afford to spend much time with her to provide enough love and affection as she struggled to make ends meet. This lead Emily to have a rough childhood plagued with illness‚ insecurity and unhappiness. Although she had a difficult childhood‚ Emily
Premium Parent Mother
I Stand Here Ironing- Exploring the Text Some of the main themes that are exemplified in the work include ideals of family connections‚ stifling beauty expectations‚ the daily life of motherhood‚ etc. The ironing board represents the life of a housewife‚ and the repetitive chores that ensue. It shows the mother is the responsible head of the house during the war‚ and thus the caretaker. The act of ironing may symbolize the mother’s attempt to iron through‚ work through‚ or smooth out what is happening
Premium Emotion Bertolt Brecht Psychology
“I Stand Here Ironing” Responses to questions: 1. The narrator is not a good mother because she does not care about Emily’s future. The narrator is the mother of Emily‚ Susan‚ and Ronnie. She says that the father of Emily left her “[…] before [Emily] was a year old” (paragraph 55). She had to get a job and work during Emily’s “[…] first six years” (55). The narrator went to Nursery School because she believed that it was the only way “[…] [she] could hold a job” (13) during the Great Depression
Premium Family Mother Fiction
personality in many ways. Working is a necessity in life and depending on the job‚ can determine how that person acts in their daily lives. A paragraph from Tillie Olsen’s‚ “I Stand Here Ironing‚” reads this‚ “After a while I found a job hashing at night so I could be with her days‚ and it was better. But it came to where I had to bring her to his family and leave her. It took a long time to raise the money for her fare back.” The narrator was explaining that she could not afford her child. This
Premium English-language films Psychology Economics
Fiction Reading Log A Mother’s Struggle: Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” examines a mother’s internal struggle about the way she raised her eldest daughter Emily. By opening with “I stand here ironing” the author depicts the oppressive world of domestic tasks that engulfed and forms the mother’s life.” The repetitive motion of the iron moving “back and forth” across the surface of the ironing board mimics the mother’s thought process as she moves back
Premium Great Depression Life Thought
Amber Iannuzzi Iannuzzi 1 Professor Scordia English 101 October 3‚ 2014 Character Analysis In “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen (Published in 1961) we get wrapped into a story from a young single mother’s point of view. Tillie Olsen says she wanted people to “. . . focus on ‘society and its institutions’ that force the narrator to suffer anguish” (402). We all know the idea of what society
Premium Dissociative identity disorder
Theme Analysis “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen. This short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is about complicated relationship between mother and daughter. The author gives us a portrait of American’s life in the 1930s - 1940s during the Big Depression. In this story the mother has to leave her daughter in the nursing center because of Emily’s mental problems‚ but she doesn’t expect what are the counsicuances might to be after that. One of the main theme in this story is a “power”
Premium Fiction Family Short story
"I Stand Here Ironing" was written in the first person so that we could see Emily the way her mother (narrator) saw her. Through her reverie‚ we feel the mother’s pain that her daughter felt ugly as a child. We ache with the knowledge that she had to send Emily to the daycare with the "evil teacher" and to a convalescent home when she was desperately ill. We feel her regrets that she couldn’t be there with Emily as she was growing because she was working too hard to keep the family together
Premium First-person narrative Narrative