Essay on I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen

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

Emily experienced many hardships in her early childhood. Emily spent a good portion of her day and even years in the presence of people who were not her mother. These people were harsh and did not appreciate Emily as her mother did (McMichael 1847). There were even times when Emily would come up with stories so that she would not have to go to nursery school where the children and students were mean (McMichael 1847). Some of these years were spent away from her mother. The clinic, that was advised for little Emily to attend, was one of these places spend away from home. The clinic where “‘They don’t like you to love anybody here’” (McMichael 1849). All of the places Emily was placed in so that her mother could make it, the sitters

One of the largest overall themes in the short story is the senses of guilt. The mother of the story is quite clearly feeling as if she hasn’t done enough for her daughter Emily. The mother in this story is feeling guilt for many, many different reasons whether it be the overall way she raised her child, for having her know what it’s like to have an absent father, and for overall not being the best mother that she feels she can be (Olsen 419 – 425).

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

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 struggled with many insecurities as a child as, “She fretted about her appearance, thin and dark and foreign-looking at a time when every little girl was supposed to look or thought she should look a chubby blond replica of Shirley Temple.” (Olsen 4). This shows us that in the past Emily has experienced shaming her own body as she “fretted about her appearance”. Also as a child, Emily was constantly sent away to be taken care of by others as it was hard for her mother to provide for her, but the thing is she never wanted to leave her mother’s side. After being sent away so many times and returning back to her mother, Emily’s mother writes, “I used to try to hold and love her after she came back, but her body would stay stiff, and after a while she'd push away.

"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

Faulkner states that Miss Emily would tell the other people that “her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly,'' (Faulkner 804). This part of the story foreshadows another incident where Emily again refuses to let go of the deceased. Instead of Emily not being able to let go of her father, this time she couldn't let go of her close friend, Homer. The hint of Emily not being able to let go of her father in the beginning serves as an indication for the reader that Miss Emily is very isolated and will do anything to prevent that. Emily’s suspicious actions causes the reader to anticipate certain happenings and wonder what will happen next.

When Emily was ill, her mother believed that the best place to get care for her child was in a special home. This contradicted the real needs Emily had. Soon after the last child was born, Emily became very ill with red measles, and once again the mother had to send her away to a convalescent home in the country where she could be cared for until she was well enough to return home. The mother thought to herself, "She can have the kind of food and care you can't manage for her, and you'll be free to concentrate on the new baby" (602). For the first six weeks, Emily was not allowed any visitors. The child sat in this strange home for six weeks not knowing anyone at all until her mother could visit her every other Sunday. When her mother did visit, there was an invisible wall "not To Be Contaminated by Parental Germs or Physical Affection" (602). The wall represents the distance between Emily and her mother, which has always been and continues. Emily had told her mother one day "They don't like you to love anybody here" (602). She wanted to love and to be loved so badly. It didn't seem that there was anywhere she could go to

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.

The treatment by Emily’s father affected her as an adult in many ways. I feel that her father actions caused her to isolate herself from society and not able to adapt to change. In the story, “A Rose for Emily”, Emily lived with her father and had little interactions with anyone else. Emily’s father was very controlling over her life by not allowing her to do things on her own, which resulted in Emily being reserved from society. Her father kept her shielded, and believed that no young man was good enough for his daughter. The narrator stated, “We remembered all the young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had robbed her, as people will” (Faulkner, 1931, 84). After his death

This reality sends panic and fear through her because now she has nowhere to turn and no one to tell her what to do, no one to command her life. Not only is she stricken with the loss of her father but now she is cut off to the outside world, because her only link has passed on. Emily immediately goes into a state of denial; to her, her father could not be dead, he was all that she had and she would not let him go.

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).

Emily is a very dependant woman who can’t take care of herself. She is so used to having her father around and to tend to her. At age thirty Emily is

Poverty and loneliness play a role in the life of the narrator and as a result, she ponders about it and how it has affected her and her daughter. “1 was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression,” (293). She was struggling financially, and because of the Great Depression, she was struggling to find a job, especially as a woman. And on top of that, she has a child she hardly has time to take care of because of her quest for a job and money to support herself and her daughter. Not only is she financially struggling, “for I worked or looked for work and for Emily's father, who "could no longer endure" (he wrote in his good-bye note) "sharing want with us."”, her husband abandoned her because of her financial situation (292). What else is more tormenting than thinking about how much of a financial hell hole one is in and that the only partner they can depend on has given up all hope?