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Paper about the depression of the great depression
Bibliography of the great depression
Paper about the depression of the great depression
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In the short story "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen, the reader is introduced to a mother living in the midst of the Great Depression dealing with angst and anxiety towards her daughter Emily. Because this story looks back during the Great Depression when Emily was born the mother's trauma is coming between the both of them. The mother wants her daughter to live a beautiful life, however, poverty, depression and dislocation has built a wall between the two women. The mother is doing everything she can to make Emily's life worth living. However, because the mother is trying so hard to juggle more than one job at a time she has less time with her daughter. During the Great Depression it was next to impossible to find a job. The mother would have less stress in her life if she had a strong dependable job with flexible hours so she could be with her daughter. The mother cannot care for her daughter to her full potential when all she is doing is working just to keep her daughter nourished, healthy and safe. The mother's character is living in a world where the word well-off is next to impossible to comprehend, "[she] found a job hashing at night so [she] could be with her days." (p.158). The mother wishes making money would not have to be the life she lived just to be next to her daughter. During the Great Depression this wish was impossible to fulfil. Thus leaving the mothers character in a lack of hope for a better future. Because the mother is living in a world of depression a dark wall has wrapped itself around her. Worrying solemnly about the life of her daughter, the mother is neglecting to appreciate the positive attributes her daughter is presenting. Emily is a gifted comedian, "Where does it come from, that comedy?" (p.159) being a comedian during the Great Depression is almost as rare as finding water during an extensive drought. If the mother wasn't as depressed she would be able to appreciate the comedy that Emily is passionate for. The mother's character is left in a state of helplessness reaching out beyond depression to view the comedian inside her daughter. Having to send Emily in her early days to live with her father was a burdensome nuisance. All of Emily's father's attributes were rubbing off on her, "all of the baby loveliness gone," (p.
The domineering attitude of Emily's father keeps her to himself, inside the house, and alone until his death. In his own way, Emily's father shows her how to love. Through a forced obligation to love only him, as he drives off young male callers, he teaches his daughter lessons of love. It is this dysfunctional love that resurfaces later, because it is the only way Emily knows how to love.
Tillie Olsen makes the narrator contradict the ideal housewife of the 1950s image for a reason. By doing this, she shows that even if you are a less than perfect mother and or housewife, it is not always your fault if things go wrong. For instance, if the narrator in this story exemplified the image of a 50s housewife, we, the readers, would not even consider blaming her for Emily's condition as well as for her relationship with Emily. However, the narrator does not exemplify the ideal image of a housewife. Thus, we, as the audience, are compelled to blame her imperfections. However, as the story goes on, it is realized that the narrator did the best that she could for Emily. She was a first time mother with no safety net. Her situation as a single mother and sole provider during Emily's early years left her with no choice. She did what she had to do.
The main Character in the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Alice Walker explains in the beginning of the story that she has 2 children and one is coming to visit her from school in Augusta. Mama had decided to send Dee off to school in Augusta after their house caught on fire and she was now coming home to visit Mama and her younger sister Maggie. Mama says “Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand hopelessly in the corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down her arms and legs, eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe”(Walker 155). Maggie was in the house when it caught fire, her mother had to drag her out but Dee and been out first so her does not have
For years Miss Emily was rarely seen out of her house. She did not linger around town or participate in any communal activities. She was the definition of a home-body. Her father was a huge part of her life. She had never...
Emily’s mother is just a teenager when she had Emily. She did not have the money or resources to take care of her, so she had to let Emily live with her grandparents for a couple of years before she could get Emily back. When Emily was two, her mother finally got her custody of her, but Emily is not the little girl she remembered. When the mother first had Emily, she described her as a beautiful baby (302), but it changed when Emily became sickly and got scars from chicken pox. The mother said, “When she finally came, I hardly knew her, walking quick and nervous like her father, looking like her father, thin, and dressed in a shoddy red that yellowed her skin and glared at the pockmarks. All the baby loveliness gone. (302)” Nevertheless, the mother is never there for Emily as she grew up. Emily tried to show her mother in different ways that she needed her, but she never seemed to catch the hint. For example, when Emily was two her mother sent her to a nursery school. The teacher of the nursery school was mistreating the children, and instead of telling her mother directly like the other kids told their parents, she told her in different ways. She always had a reason why we should stay home. Momma, you look sick. Momma, I feel sick. Momma, the teachers aren’t there today, they’re sick. Momma, we can’t go, there was a fire there last night. Momma, it’s a holiday
Olsen presents mother in I Stand Here Ironing as a woman of compassion because she is bringing back all of her memories of her daughter, Emily’s life and putting them into perspective of how the cards that she was dealt in life could not have been changed because the situation was just that, she was low on money and too young to fully grasp what being a mother was all about without reading from
life and looked for a way to gain her freedom. Emily must endure her fathers
Emily, in a sense, is a reflection of her mother. The story flashes back to when the narrator was about Emily’s current age which also happens to be when the narrator gave birth to Emily. From that point forward the narrator’s life was very difficult and although someone is pointing out to her that Emily needs her help and attention, she does not put any effort into helping her. The narrator realizes that Emily’s situation will have negative consequences because it directly mirrors her life. The whole story was an introspection on the narrator’s life, but the purpose of this self reflection was to learn from her life and see how it may apply to her daughter’s life. From the introspection of the narrator one could learn to gain from their own mistakes and the mistakes of others.
The story begins with a sentence “I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron” (Olsen 73). It is unusual that the story starts with a description of the mother ironing. This strategy easily draws readers’ attention and introduces the narrator character to the readers.
As time went on pieces from Emily started to drift away and also the home that she confined herself to. The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily, although she never hears it. She was slightly aware of the faint whispers that began when her presence was near. Gossip and whispers may have been the cause of her hideous behavior. The town couldn’t wait to pity Ms. Emily because of the way she looked down on people because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she never thought she would be alone the way her father left her.
The short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen a remarkable piece of literature involving the struggles many women faced in the 19th century before, during and after the Great Depression. A mother describes her daughter as a “child of her age, or depression, of war, of fear” and constantly reflects over the decisions she has made as a mother. (Olsen, pg. 4). Her story exemplifies the guilt of a mother not being attentive to her daughter as she had been working (“Tillie Olsen” pg. 1). By reading “I Stand Here Ironing”, it is noticeable about the realism of women taking care of their families during the Great Depression.
... she also believes Emily turned out well, because she is not helpless and she can find her way. Emily’s mother realizes she has no control over the circumstances, now only the ability to respond to them and to learn from the experiences. This allows a reconciling process to occur within her, because although she was not able to raise Emily like she wanted to, she did the best she could under the circumstances.
She is a single mom, feeling overwhelm with a young child and made few too many bad choice and taken a few wrong advices. She is consuming with guilt due to the fact that she raises a child on her own, who grew up struggling to fit in. Emily father leaving, made her the head of the house hold, so she had to get a job. She works long hours and leave Emily with strangers, which lead to Emily’s problems. “They persuaded me at the clinic to send her away to a convalescent home in the country where ‘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.’” (Tillie Olsen 225) They convince her the right things for her child is to be separated from her family and be raise with stranger. They isolate Emily from her family, which causes some of the problems in the young life. At the convalescent she is not allow to keeps personal mementos, she is being treat as an inmate instead of a child. The narrator feels guilt that she wasn’t a great mom, she is not the only one to blame, society rules and laws, should also share the blame. She is a young confused mom and she is being taken advantage of and don’t
Social pressure to raise pleasant, good mannered children who become grounded and productive adults has been a driving influence for many generations. If our children do not fit into this mold then we’re considered failures are parents. Emily’s mother is tormented by the phone call which sets off a wave of maternal guilt. Emily’s mother was young and abandoned by her husband while Emily was still an infant so she had to rely on only herself and the advice of others while she raised her daughter. After Emily was born her mother, “with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, (I) did like the books said. Though her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with swollenness, I waited till the clock decreed.” (Olsen 174). Then when Emily was two she went against her own instincts about sending Emily to a nursery school while she worked which she considered merely “parking places for children.” (Olsen 174). Emily’s mother was also persuaded against her motherly instincts to send her off to a hospital when she did not get well from the measles and her mother had a new baby to tend to. Her mother even felt guilt for her second child, Susan, being everything society deemed worthy of attention. Emily was “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, 177) she was also neither “glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn.” (Olsen 177), which her sister Susan had in
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.