Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The portrayal of women in literature
The portrayal of women in literature
Gender roles in womens literature
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Love and Acceptance in I Stand Here Ironing and Everyday Use
Tillie Olsen's I Stand Here Ironing, and Alice Walker's Everyday Use, both address the issue of a mother's guilt over how her children turn out. Both mothers blamed themselves for their daughter's problems. While I Stand Here Ironing is obviously about the mousy daughter, in Everyday Use this is camouflaged by the fact most of the action and dialog involves the mother and older sister Dee. Neither does the mother in Everyday Use say outright that she feels guilty, but we catch a glimpse of it when Dee is trying very hard to claim the handmade quilts. The mother says she did something she had never done before, "hugged Maggie to me," then took the quilts from Dee and gave them to Maggie. In I Stand Here Ironing the mother tells us she feels guilty for the way her daughter Emily is, for the things she (the mother) did and did not do. The mother's neighbor even tells her she should "smile at Emily more when you look at her." Again towards the end of the story Emily's mother admits "my wisdom came too late." The mothers unknowingly gave Emily and Maggie second best.
Both mothers compare their two daughters to each other. In Everyday Use the mother tells us that "Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure." She Fahning -2-speaks of the fire that burned and scarred Maggie. She tells us how Maggie is not bright, how she shuffles when she walks. Comparing her with Dee whose feet vwere always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them." We also learn of Dee's "style" and the way she awes the other girls at school with it.
The mother in I Stand Here Ironing speaks of Susan, "quick and articulate and assured, everything in appearance and manner Emily was not." Emily "thin and dark and foreign-looking at a time when every little girl was supposed to look or thought she should look a chubby blonde replica of Shirley Temple." Like Dee, Emily had a physical limitation also. Hers was asthma.
Both Emily and Maggie show resentment towards their sisters. The sisters who God rewarded with good looks and poise. Emily's mother points out the "poisonous feeling" between the sisters, feelings she contributed to by her inability to balance the "hurts and needs" of the two.
In Alice Walker’s, “Everyday Use” Dee is one of the daughters of Mama. Mama also has another daughter named Maggie, but she is portrayed not as smart as her sister Dee. When they were growing up Dee used to read to her sister and Mama. She used to read to them ever when they did not want her to. That showed how she was smarter than Maggie and after that Mama started treated them differently.
Macbeth and “A Simple Plan” are very similar because the main female characters are strong and controlling woman. These powerful women are able to manipulate their husbands to betray, lie, and murder. Macbeth and “A Simple Plan” clearly have controlling wives who are the real mastermind whereas their husbands are merely puppets awaiting their wives to pull the strings.
...sents some discrepancies in how people value their family history. To some, family does not mean much at all but others are very much aware of their ancestors and the traits that they share in common. Some people use this self-awareness to better themselves while others find ways of exploiting it to satisfy their superficial needs. Dee is the type of individual that misuses her heritage. She is using it to fit in and attract the new religious group with which she has begun to associate. Maggie just seems oblivious, although the story does not allow the reader to know what she is thinking. The truth is that Maggie and her mother are living their heritage. This is the lesson that Dee's mother is trying to teach her; to accept and embrace who she is rather than continuously search for something she is not. She could search for her entire life and never be fulfilled.
In the short story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, Dee becomes angry with her mother because she won’t allow Dee to take quilts that she had already promised she would give to Maggie. I do not believe this feeling is justified one bit. The mother sent Dee to a school in Augusta for her to be happy since their house burnt to the ground, that must have been expensive; when Dee comes to visit is seems as if she has changed. Dee seems to be very unappreciative. Mama tells Dee that she has already promised Maggie they could be hers then asks “Why don’t you take one or two of the others?”(Walker160). Dee blows up on the narrator. She could have just told Dee that she could not have any quilts at all and also, Dee did not give a good enough reason for her to have the quilts instead of
into Bonham's bedroom to pull a prank on him in his sleep, Bonham was found dead.
...y're just collecting dust in the bottom of this old trunk." Momma had other quilts to use. She would not begrudge Dee. However, Momma did promise them to Maggie and so Momma had to keep that promise because Momma knew that regardless of how much more "successful and smart" one daughter was could not be allowed to diminish the love she had for Maggie. For Momma, a promise was a promise and barring her own death, it would be kept.
The stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, are different in many ways, but are also similar. “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Everyday Use” both focus on the relationships of the mother and daughter, and on the sibling’s relationships with each other. Emily from “I Stand Here Ironing” and Maggie from “Everyday Use” have different relationships with their mothers, but have similar relationships with their sisters. Although the stories are similar in that Emily and Maggie are both distant from their sisters, they differ in that the mother is distant from Emily in “I Stand Here Ironing,” while the mother is close to Maggie in “Everyday Use.”
...ster and then returns after bettering herself. Mama and Maggie are obviously somewhat jealous of Dee's life. Dee is misunderstood as a selfish, bratty, unappreciative daughter. Maggie is misunderstood as being this sweet, shy, perfect child. Both of the sisters are very misunderstood, but Dee is definitely the most understood of the two. Dee deserves a lot more credit than she receives in this story.
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.
In the story “Everyday Use” Walker weaves us into the lives of Momma, Dee, and Maggie, an underprivileged family in rural Georgia. Momma is described as a loving, hard working woman who cares more about her family’s welfare than her appearance. The conflict comes along with Momma’s two daughters Dee and Maggie whose personalities are as different as night and day. Dee, the younger, is an attractive, full figured, light skinned young lady with ample creativity when it comes to getting what she wants and feels she needs. Maggie on the other hand, is darker skinned, homely and scarred from the fire that destroyed the family’s first house. Throughout the story we are told about Maggie’s timid and withdrawn behavior. Her own mother described her as “. . . a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by some careless person rich enough to own a car . . . That is the way my Maggie walks . . . chin on chest, eyes on ground, feet in shuffle, ever since the fire.” (Handout, Walker) She is constantly overpowered by her dominant sister who “held life in the palm of one hand, that “no” is a word the world never learned to say to her” (Handout, Walker). It seems as if Walker herself find Maggie inferior, seeing as how she is a minor character in the story. Things begin to turn around for Maggie towards the end when she receives the family’s...
As time goes on Emily grows up, her mother criticizes and blames herself for the distance between the relationships. It is causing tension in their already rocky relationship. The mother is obviously suffering from guilt on how Emily was raised and the unpleasant memories of the past. Emily was also suffering. We see her shyness towards those who care for her. She was a very depressed teen. She had quietness in her daily duties, and her feelings of not being good enough towards herself. She always felt that she was extremely ugly and not smart compared to her younger sister, Susan. She thought she was perfect. She was the typical “Shirley Temple” image.
Heritage in a family can be preserved in many different ways. Be it a diary written by your great great grandpa or a pot your grandma passed on to your mum who passed it on to you, nothing compares to the great comfort in understanding ones heritage especially when it involves the deep love and devotion of a strong mother. In the poem "My Mother Pieced Quilts" by Teresa Acosta and the short story "Everyday Use" by Alice Walker, both authors use imagery and figurative language to establish a quilt as a symbol for a mothers love of her children to illustrate their themes.
The sisters use Marie-Adele's death as a time to learn that they “gotta make the most of it while “they’re” here[,] - giv[e] it one good try” (1161) and remember how special their sisterly bond is. The sisters lean on each other for support during their time of grief. Emily takes Zhaboonigan under her wing by enlisting her to help with the store, Emily supports Annie by going to her shows where she “sing[s] back-up for Fritz” (1162), and Veronique is “cooking for Eugene and the children” (1163). Emily and Zhaboonigan formed a special bond during and after their trip. Zhaboonigan begins to feel a strong affection for Emily and Emily confides in Zhaboonigan.
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.
In a majority of circadian rhythms there seems to be major components which include an endogenous component (which is regulated by an internal clock located in the hypothalamus) and an exogenous component. This exogenous component is made up of different clues in time in the world around us....