Analysis Of The Movie ' I Stand Here Ironing '

Losing a parent is presumably an unthinkable concept for those lucky to have them alive, but sometimes the title of “parent” dies long before a body is placed in the ground. Toi Derricotte author of “Beginning Dialogues” unfortunately had to experience both the death of her mother’s title of “parent”, as well as her literal death. Derricotte’s parents had divorced when she was eighteen, and her father did not seem to play much of a role in her life; she was left to be raised by her mentally abusive mother. Her mother also had a tough road to walk growing up, having to face and deal with brutal issues like racism and bulling. Persevering through those tough times may be the underlining reason behind Derricotte’s mother’s negativity and abuse towards her daughter. Perhaps she just grew a thick skin at a very young age and had never learned how to feel, accept, or administer love. Derricotte’s had said: “She told me all my life she loved me, as if she completely forgot the hundred slights, humiliations, threats, and insinuations. Of course she loved me;

Suffering from tuberculosis, Emily was sent away from her mother again to a convalescent home, where she could be better cared for. While Emily is at the recovery center, she is cut off from almost all communication especially relationship with her own mother. Even the letters the narrator writes to her are read to her once and then thrown away. Parents are allowed to visit only every other Sunday, when the children line up on the balconies of their cottages and conduct shouted conversations with the parents who stand below. Emily’s balcony in particular represents the emotional distance between the narrator and her daughter.

Although Twyla and Roberta both struggled with mother issues, they develop different reactions yet similar solutions to their troubles. During her stay at the youth shelter,

The short story “I Stand Here Ironing” (1961) by Tillie Olsen is a touching narration of a mother trying to understand and at the same time justifying her daughter’s conduct. Frye interprets the story as a “meditation of a mother reconstructing her daughter’s past in an attempt to express present behavior” (Frye 287). An unnamed person has brought attention and concern to her mother expressing, “‘She’s a youngster who needs help and whom I’m deeply interested in helping’” (Olsen 290). Emily is a nineteen-year-old complex girl who is atypical, both physically and in personality.

A girl growing up in the traditional American family would be in a comfortable situation. During her early months her parents could pay for child care that is not sub standard like that which Emily attended. Typically, her budding relationship between mother and child would not be severed or disrupted by the circumstances created by other factors such as the mother leaving her child while she was working. The child would be close to her mother emulating from her and learning from her. Her mother and father are financially well off, so if the daughter shows any signs of psychological trouble they can choose to send her to a therapist. For Emily, the daughter in I Stand Here Ironing, she was mired in despair, forced to live away from home with her father’s relatives, stuck living in a repressive

Although the mother may have been trying to help Emily, the mother should have tried to take care of Emily better instead of sending her off as the only solution. One of the other effects of her mother’s unavoidable neglect is Emily’s failure to be on the same pace as her peers in class. She is at a state of illiteracy that is uncommon for her age at the time which may be a result from staying at home instead of going to class to take care of the household. In addition to the mother’s neglect, having a sister who was the ideal poster child may have caused self confidence problems as she grew older being the odd one out in the family. Emily’s mother should have made sure she was able to take care of Emily first before deciding to give birth to another child. What the mother thought would be the best option for Emily had a more clear negative effect on Emily after she grew older still not having any clear direction in her life.

In Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”, a mother recalls the life of her first born daughter. She retells the hardships she and her daughter had to go through to make it. The main focus, however, is on the hardships of the daughter, Emily. These hardships, lack of tender love, attention and over abundant strife in Emily’s life, lead to her being unnoticed and somewhat forgotten. In Emily’s late teenage years, comedy became a way for her to standout. As well, comedy could have been a way to cope with her less than ideal childhood. Psychology might be able to answer whether she used comedy to cope or was her gift of comedy a result of personality traits.

Comparing Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” Daughter and mother relationship is an endless topic for many writers. They meant to share the bond of love and care for each other. Nevertheless, in the real world their relationship is not as successful as it ought to be. The stories “Girl” and “I Stand Here Ironing” are examples of this conflict. The author of the short story “Girl” Jamaica Kincaid use her life story to reflect in the story. In her short story “Girl”, Kincaid presents the experience of being young and female in a poor country. The story is structured as a single sentence of advice that a mother gives to her daughter. The mother expresses her resents and worries about her daughter becoming a woman. The author of “I Stand Here Ironing” is Tillie Olsen, similarly her story portrays powerfully the economic domestic burdens a poor woman faced, as well as the responsibility and powerlessness she feels over her child’s life. Moreover, the woman is grieving about her daughter's life and about the circumstances that shaped her own mothering. Both stories have many features in common. Not only do they explore the troubles that could exist in the relationship between mother and daughter, but also they raise questions about motherhood, especially when a mother lives on a shoestring, the stories explore the difficulties that a young mother has to endure while raising her child in poverty. Although the two stories refer to different place and

“Only help her to know-help make it so there is cause for her to know that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron” (Tillie Olsen). The last sentence of a story might not mean a lot to some readers however, for most reading this story, the last sentence makes one rethink the whole perspective of Emily’s mother. Is she really this awful mother who only took care of her daughter, Emily, half of the time? Did she actually care for her daughter and didn’t know how to show it until it was too late? In “I Stand Here Ironing” Tillie Olsen uses symbolism, flashbacks, and theme to develop the narrator as an unsympathetic mother who is unable to treat her daughter, Emily, with the attention and care that she needed to blossom into adulthood.

As years go by, the mother has re-married and often feels guilty for the actions she took to ensure a better life for her daughter. Emily grows into a young child who is self-conscious about her appearance, “thin and foreign-looking at t a time when every girl was supposed to look [like a] replica of Shirley Temple” (206). Because she does not look like the others, she continues to torment herself and compares herself to other girls her age. However, as Emily becomes a young adult, her character changes from a quiet, awkward girl, to a comedic teen. Her mother now realizes what a beautiful and capable woman she has become. She has accepted her daughter’s limitations because not everyone can be successful in worldly ways. Ultimately, Emily’s mother wants to “help her to know-help make it so there is cause for her to know-that she is far more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron” (209).

“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is a depiction of a mother-daughter relationship that lacks involvement and warmth. The whole story composed of the mother’s memory of her relationship with her daughter, Emily. The memory was a painful one comprised mostly of the way the mother was much less able to care for Emily. The forsaken of Emily demonstrates the importance of physical and emotional support.

In the story “A Sorrowful Woman” by Gail Godwin the ‘woman’ was put under substantial expectations and pressure to be a mother to a child she did not love, when she could not meet those expectation she defied her role as a mother and died as a result. The women looking at her child makes her “sad

“Where’d You Bernadette?” by Maria Semple is a novel about an eerie woman who has a daughter and a husband. She seems to be a mysterious individual at the beginning, but as the story goes through, you find out why she is acting that way. She ends up by escaping away and leaving her family; nonetheless, at the end everything gets together again. Maria Semple loves to compare family’s issues because in the entire book is writing about how the characters interact between them. Although, Semple seems to be a sophisticated author, the role of mother in WDYB is the biggest topic to analyze in the full story. In this novel, there are several mothers who can be genuinely valuable examples of the types of motherhoods.

The bond between a mother and child is often spoken of as being unlike any other. Yet there are always exceptions to the rule where this connection isn 't as impenetrable as one might assume. This book is an example of this bond gradually becoming weaker over time. It shows how it affects the child, Bone, and leaves her vulnerable to the abuse of her step-father. Bone’s mother, Anney, had fallen in love with a man who abused her which at first, she’s unaware but eventually comes to realize but still chooses to stay with him. Throughout the book there are instances of Anney’s negligence in recognizing her daughter’s abuse and being of aid to her but wasn 't. In having to deal with her

“I Stand Here Ironing” written by Tillie Olsen is a short story that reflects on the struggles of a single mother who looks back on the past and tries to assess the effect her decisions and circumstances had on her young daughter, Emily. “This story is part of the awarding-winning collection, Tell Me A Riddle, which was first published in 1961” (Wolfe). “This story is considered the most autobiographical of Olsen’s literary works (Piedmont-Marton). The title of the story is taken from the stories opening line, “I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron” (Bauer, Olsen). The story is one of the best examples in literature, and certainly one of the first, to offer readers a glimpse into the lives of the working-class women and families from a woman’s perspective. (Piedmont-Marton) This story “illustrates Olsen’s particular concern with the difficulties faced by women”. (Wolfe) As the story unfolds, Olsen uses distinct character traits, imagery, tone, and style to create a dramatic sense of the mother’s internal debate of her own feelings.