In the moment that she saw her mother's face disappointment when she failed to succeed a certain event the daughter felt dying. She realized that she needs another purpose to live not only my being an obedient daughter and by not fulfilling…
“My sister sucked the marrow from the bones of guilt when she realized that she had cleaned her plate for a week” (35-36). Now the daughter feels guilty but she also understands how much her mother has given up. She has no idea how many times her mother has sacrificed for her and her sister, but she does know how many times she has given her mother a hard time. Lines 37 through 39, She carried the secret for thirty years until it ate her up inside churned in her stomach like tapeworms ringed with razors, until she told me one afternoon when I had a fight with Mom.” The guilt from that afternoon continues to haunt her sister and she does not want to see her mother…
When it comes to claiming responsibility for personal success there are several different kinds of people. Some who take all the credit and some who give it to the others that help them get there. In “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “The Rich Brother” by Tobias Wolff there is a constant theme of the meaning of success, who to thank for it and the importance of family. In “I Stand Here Ironing’, Olsen talks about a girl who lived a rough childhood but in the end still made something of herself. Told from the point of view of her mother, it is seen how the daughter could resent her through how she was pushed from place to place but overall did not. In Wolff’s “The Rich Brother” there is a constant struggle of the differences in their…
The short story “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid was a bittersweet warning from a mother to her daughter. The reader is experiencing the viewpoint of the protagonist through the soliloquy of her mother’s instructions that batter her like bugs smacking the windshield. This scolding reminds me of conversations with my own grandmother. The author doesn’t use periods or capital letters to symbolize the endless barrage of words, which I mistakenly perceived as nagging during my first review. A second reading brought about feelings of sympathy in the lament of a regretful mother’s memories; this reminded me of my own mixed perceptions of past conversations with family. I enjoyed the mother’s attempts to convey her own experience in life through her instructions on how to do mundane chores. When the mother in the story says, “Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them in the stone heap” refers to laundry, “Cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil, and “Soak salt fish before you cook it” refers to meal preparation (Kincaid 541). After repeated warnings to her daughter against walking like “the slut you are so bent on becoming”, I felt sympathy for the mother’s obvious experience with a hard life as she describes making medicine “to throw away a child before it even becomes a child”, and “bullying and being bullied by a man” (Kincaid 542). I wondered if the mother had been raped. My favorite reference on revenge was her instruction to “spit up in the air if you feel like it”, and “how to…
Upon hearing the news she breaks into tears, just as her loved ones had feared. She is expressing sadness over her husband’s death.…
Why compare 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 was born and raised up to the age of seventeen in Antigua, a former colony of Great Britain. 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, an American writer of Russian-Jewish descendent. 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 time, they share the theme of poverty. On the one hand, “I Stand Here Ironing” is set in 1950s in the USA. However, it also gives some account of 1930s and 1940s as it follows the life of the author from birth till early adolescence. During this period the USA suffered one of its deepest crises and also participated in WWII. We can easily presume how poor the conditions of life in America were at…
her mother (narrator) saw her. Through her reverie, we feel the mother's pain that her…
The 3 main ideas recognized in this poem are the innocence of her daughter/children in general, the protection mothers feel the need to give to their children, and the importance of being true to oneself as we grow up.…
Raising a family can be tough in the best of conditions. For a young mother in the midst of a war and a depression, raising a child can be absolutely tumultuous. Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” recants one mother’s struggle to connect with her daughter and still overcome the adversities placed upon her. One of the central themes of this narrative is a mother’s guilt over not being able to connect with her daughter. This disconnection is brought on by external forces such as poverty and social oppression as well as the inexperience of being a mother. Olson, in her story "I Stand Here Ironing," reflects this guilt and emotional disconnection through point of view, tone, and word choice…
“I Stand Here Ironing” written by Tillie Olsen, is a short story that focuses closely on a mother’s struggle to raise her daughter during the Great Depression while balancing motherly duties and sees pasts her mistakes. The family is forced to learn how to come to terms with the hardships and tries to move past them. As the narrator reminisces about her nineteen years old daughter’s childhood throughout the story, she wonders if she had not been so self absorbed, could have her daughter’s life been different. The tone of the story is set in the opening by the narrator having a conversation with someone concerned of the wellbeing of her daughter Emily. Even though “I Stand Here Ironing” is told from the mother’s perspective in first person, I was able to think of my own mother while reading the story and hearing the narrator worry about her daughter and children.…
The point of view and narrative structure of I Stand Here Ironing, by Tillie Olson, completely affects the theme of the story in many ways. The theme of the story is the powerful bond between mother and daughter. The point of view would have been less personal if it had been changed. The narrative structure consists of flashbacks, which are very valuable to the story and the way it is meant to be read and understood.…
In "I Stand Here Ironing", by Tillie Olsen, Olsen uses the symbolism of the iron, specific historical allusions, and condemning emotional tone to characterize the mother and her doubtful attitude towards her daughter.…
The short stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker contain many similarities, both authors stress the importance of family and the struggles involved in family dynamics. In each story a mother is showing concern in regards to their relationship with their children due to past and present life obstacles.…
* This story also brings out the daughter’s importance in everything the mother does when the mother decides on a very perplexed but a firm decision which is revealed in the ending.…
“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” (Olsen, 1961). A touching sentiment that grabs ahold of a heart of the audience, because it as distressing as it sounds it comes a little too late. A story portrayal of a mother and daughter’s relationship, as well as a daughter’s devaluation during those times is tear-jerking. I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen is a representation of true emotion and somewhat guilt or the lack of, during a period when times were challenging. The point-of-view, setting, and tone demonstrate the somberness in the theme of the relationship between an over-whelmed, unemotionally connected mother to her daughter,…