Essay about I Stand Here Ironing

The day after her father's death, the women of the town went to give their condolences to Miss. Emily. To their surprise, Miss. Emily was "dressed as usual" and had "no trace of grief on her face (Perrine's 285)." Emily told the women that her father was not dead. Finally after three days of trying to hold on to her father, "she broke down, and they buried her father quickly (Perrine's 285)." The town's people tired to justify Miss. Emily's actions, by saying that she had nothing left, and was clinging to the one thing that had robbed her for so long they convinced themselves that she was not crazy.

The narrator seems unable to establish direct contact with Emily, either in the recovery center or their home life. The narrator notes how Emily grew slowly more distant and emotionally unresponsive. Emily returned home frail, distant, and rigid, with little appetite. Each time Emily returned, she was forced to reintegrate into the changing fabric of the household. Clearly, Emily and the narrator have been absent from each other’s lives during significant portions of Emily’s development. After so much absence, the narrator intensifies her attempts to show Emily affection, but these attempts are rebuffed, coming too late to prevent Emily’s withdrawal from her family and the world. Although Emily is now at home with the narrator, the sense of absence continues even in the present moment of the story. Emily, the narrator’s central

In addition to the impact of her family on her mental state, it is also through the relationship Miss Emily has with her community, that helps to foreshadow the fateful ending. It is through the words and actions of the community that this relationship is shown, such as how they even distance themselves from her. In the beginning of the story in Act I, Faulkner describes Miss Emily’s position in the town as “a sort of hereditary obligation”. Since the death of her father, the town is aware of the struggle she is having while being alone, so that is why they see her

Emily was kept confined from all that surrounded her. Her father had given the town folks a large amount of money which caused Emily and her father to feel superior to others. “Grierson’s held themselves a little too high for what they really were” (Faulkner). Emily’s attitude had developed as a stuck-up and stubborn girl and her father was to blame for this attitude. Emily was a normal

Emily’s upbringing is plagued with difficulties. She is the first-born of a young mother and the eldest of five brothers and sisters. As a baby, she is

This was the only way she felt she could do both. Harder still was that Emily would cry and beg her mother not to that nursery school. As these separations press on Emily and her mother, the mother feels guilt and her child is torn by a separation made even worse as she's placed in several undesirable locations.

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.

Emily's father suppressed all of her inner desires. He kept her down to the point that she was not allowed to grow and change with the things around her. When “garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated…only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps” (Rose 217). Even when he died, she was still unable to get accustom to the changes around her. The traditions that her and her father continued to participate in even when others stopped, were also a way that her father kept her under his thumb. The people of the town helped in

"You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. Over and over, we are told of the limitations on choice--"it was the only way"; "They persuaded me" and verbs of necessity recur for descriptions of both the mother's and Emily's behavior. " In such statements as "my wisdom ! came too late," the story verges on becoming an analysis of parental guilt. With the narrator, we construct an image of the mother's own development: her difficulties as a young mother alone with her daughter and barely surviving during the early years of the depression; her painful months of enforced separation from her daughter; her gradual and partial relaxation in response to a new husband and a new family as more children follow; her increasingly complex anxieties about her first child; and finally her sense of family balance which surrounds but does not quite include the early memories of herself and Emily in the grips of survival needs. In doing so she has neither trivialized nor romanticized the experience of motherhood; she has indicated the wealth of experience yet to be explored in the story’s possibilities of experiences, like motherhood, which have rarely been granted serious literary consideration. Rather she is searching for

“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.

     Emotional support also plays an important role of Emily’s well being. The idea mother suppose to care, support, and value their children needs. Emily needed this nourishment. She needed her mother to smile at her in order for her to feel a connection with the person that she supposed to be able to depend on. Emily’s mother did not know how to communicate with Emily. The mother-daughter relationship has an element of coldness, it lacks warmth. “There were years she did not want me to touch her” (Olsen 262). Emily’s mother inability to interact with her, leaves Emily unloved and in return, she shall not express any love toward her mother. Emily’s mother feels her “wisdom came too late” (Olsen 262). With this thought in mind, Emily’s mother shall never show communication or love to Emily, therefore the relationship shall continue to be doomed.

Emily is very vulnerable mostly because of her appearance. "She tormented herself enough about not looking like the others, there was enough of the unsureness, the having to be conscious of works before you speak, the constant caring-what are they thinking of me? Without having it all magnified by the merciless physical drivers" (Olson 603). Emily is a skinny, fragile, and sick child, and in the outer world, other kids without values would point her out. Emily is always insecure about what she says, or does in front of others. The insecurity of not being able to be her own person is always on her mind.

Emily is angry and resentful. She is angry at her mother and blames her for her life and the way she has turned out. Her mother has always put her down and constantly tell her that she was

“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.

Emily behaves the way she does for numerous reasons. She is born into an aristocratic family. Emily is brought up as a Southern belle by her father and is placed on a pedestal by the townspeople. The Grierson’s are known in town for being extremely wealthy and having the nicest house in Jefferson, Yoknapatawpha County. Due to the fact that her father, Mr. Grierson, keeps her isolated and socially restricted as a child, she behaves abnormally. Emily feels as if she is pressured to live up to her father’s expectations. Because Emily is kept away from everything, she is not yet exposed to the real world.