Symbolism In I Stand Here Ironing

The symbol of fire ultimately represents the relationship with her family and how it affects her. One way this is shown is with her fascination and appreciation of fire. She is captivated with the fact that it can provide warmth and yet be destructive. She would

The first being the house itself. The house represents the stubbornness of Emily. When everything near her was changing, she did not, and neither did her house. They both remained constant through the revolutions. Another symbol is the smell that is trapped inside the walls of the house, then eventually escapes. It symbolizes the decaying of Miss Emily’s mind, and how her mental state is continually going downhill. The sidewalks that are being built around her house, resemble evolution. While everything around Miss Emily changes and becomes better and bigger by evolving, she chooses not to change. She refuses to pay the taxes the new tax collectors are demanding of her because she is set back in her ways and is too stubborn to admit

Each symbol represents something bigger in the whole scheme of things. The mansion that the girls are first sent to is a cold and dreary place to the children. Byatt describes the mansion as cold and dark. This is because of war time in England and they are tying to not be obvious. This dreariness only helps the symbol of the mansion to represent what is going on at that time. The house is a representation of the “State.” That being the government and everything that is part of the security it provides. There is a sense of security in a way that the mansion is used. The government commandeered the mansion for use as a safe house, although there still is a feeling of doubt about it. To the girls and other children, the mansion is a place of security or home until they move on. This is most likely not what the girls had in mind when they arrived. For them to feel any sort of comfort in this time of tragedy, they will need to stick together and make the best of the situation. The girls seemed to be thinking the worst of every event but at the mansion, things were taken care of to the best of the ability of the adults there to care for them.

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.

Lorraine Hansberry’s first and most obvious symbol used in her play, is Mama’s plant. Mama’s plant is really old and it lacks very much of what it needs to maintain healthy and stay alive. The plant symbolizes several things. One of the things it represents is Mama’s care for her family. Just like Mama -cares for her plant even though it is old and lacks nourishment. She still takes car^&e of it, waters it, and gives it the sunlight it can get. This represents Mama’s care for her family because her family is falling apart but she still cares for them, gives them a roof to live under, and she has hope that things will get better. Another thing that Mama’s plant represents is Mama’s dream. Mama has a dream of someday having her own garden and a house of her own. Mama’s quote in Act I Scene I, “Well, i always wanted me a garden like i used to see sometimes at the back of houses down home.

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

In spite of her suffering, it is almost shocking how Emily behaves extraordinary well even in stressful situations. When she is left at nursery school, she acts unexpectedly contrary to most kids her age. “‘She did not clutch and implore “don’t go Mommy” like the other children’” (Olsen 291). She prefers to stay at home but even while trying to convince her mother to let her stay, she does it subtly, “‘Never a direct protest, never rebellion’” (Olsen 292). Does Emily behave well by choice? Her mother is worried and wonders, “What in me demanded that goodness in her? And what was the cost, the cost to her of such goodness?” (Olsen 292).

Furthermore, Miss Emily’s hair is one of the symbols, shortly after her father’s death Emily cuts her hair that could possibly symbolize the freedom for her as breaking away from her father's control "When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl..." (212). Also, as Emily grows older her hair changes into “iron-gray, like the hair of an active man” (214). That hair colour changing symbolizes the time, we realize time first by Emily's hair, and then her hair has turned "a vigorous iron-gray” (214) when she disappears into her house.

Another powerful symbolisms was when Jim meets the girls for a picnic. The symbol of the plow against the powerful sun. The third symbol is the rattlesnake and it 's symbol of Jim becoming a man. The girls reminisce as does Jim at the picnic. The girls remember the beautiful wonderful memories of their homelands and contemplate they 're great struggles to make it in America. At the end of their picnic the silhouette of the pile against the setting sun symbolizes the plow like the pioneer spirit of strength, beauty in all inspiring greatness of nature like the sun. “Presently we saw a curious thing: there were no clouds, the sun was going down in a limpid, gold-wash sky. Just as the lower edge of the red disc rested on the high fields against the horizon, and black figure suddenly appeared on the face of the sun. We swing trophy, straining our eyes toward it. In a moment we realized what it was. And some upland farm, a pile have been left standing in the field. The sun was thinking just behind that to find across the distance was the horse on a light, it 's third against the sun, it was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; The handles, the tongue, the share-Black against the mountain ride. They are at wise, heroic in size, A picture the sun. Even while we were whispering about, our vision disappeared; The ball dropped and dropped until the red tip meet with the earth. The field below us was dark, the sky was growing pale, and that forgotten

The next poetry example is “The Room of My Life” written by Anne Sexton yet again another poem that is filled with imagery, which is one of Anne Sexton’s trademarks. In this poem common household objects are used such as a typewriter, an ash tray, a knife etc. This is so the reader can visualize her living circumstances and also bring to life the objects meaning to her. Each one of these items has a special importance in Sexton’s daily life because after all she is representing the room of her life. The typewriter is a symbol used to represent her writing and her poetry, poetry became her outlet to express her struggles with depression “the forty-eight keys of the type writer each an eye ball that is never shut” (line 6-7). This is an expression, meaning Sexton is very passionate about her work and stays up late working tirelessly on her writing. The next symbol is an ash tray, “ash trays to cry into” (line 4). This could imply that Sexton

“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner presents yet another example of a woman who possesses feelings of adoration and hatred but is constantly in despair and isolation because of the male influences in her life. Like the woman, Delia, in “Sweat”, she holds these hateful and even fearful feelings held up inside of herself until she acts out and does something drastic, for example, murdering Homer Barron (913). In “A Rose for Emily”, like in “Sweat”, the male figures are characterized as being very authoritative and controlling, in the case of Emily, her father is this male figure. The narrator provides a detailed description of him next to Emily as others pictured them, as a “tableau”. “Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the backflung front door.”(909). The imagery of the father clutching the whip next to the fragile Emily against a such a pure white background brings one to see and acknowledge the dominating and controlling nature of their relationship, better than any passage of conversation ever could

     Emily’s mother felt like she was forced to neglect Emily. Her excuse was that the time was hard, it was the age “of depression, of war, of fear” (Olsen 262). Although things were not under Emily’s mother’s control, she takes responsibility anyway. In society, parents are thought to provide physical and emotional support so that their children can advance through life with prosperity. This paper is the property of Virtual Essays .com Copyright ©

In Faulkner's story, an onlooker tells of the peculiar events that occurred during Miss Emily's life. The author never lets the reader understand Emily's side to the story. Instead, the reader is forced to guess why Emily is as strange as she is. In the story, Emily had harbored her father's dead body in her house for three days (par. 27). The reader is told of how the town looked upon what Emily had done, but the reader is never able to fully understand Emily's actions until the end of the story.

Emily’s house is a symbol of the idea that holding onto the past in the midst of constant change can lead to madness. The house is described with “a big, squarish frame... decorated with cupolas and spires and

“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.