In the short story, I Stand Here Ironing, by Tillie Olsen. The point of view of this story is the first person because the story only uses the narrator's thoughts or known as in the story Emily's mother. That took place in “Pre-relief, pre-WPA world depression,” also known as the great depression. The tone of the story is regretful throughout the story. The protagonist of the story is Emily's mother and Emily and there is a foil character that is the new baby girl Susan. This story starts off as the narrator or Emily's mother that is ironing and she speaking to someone from her daughter Emily's school. Emily's mother is discussing how she could give guidance in helping her 19-year-old daughter Emily. Later, the narrator explains that she doesn't understand Emily so she reflects her past when the narrator says that Emily …show more content…
Then when Emily was two the narrator raise enough money to put Emily in nursery school. The climax of the story is that when Emily performs a comedy act on the stage and suddenly everyone like her especially her mother, or the narrator and the narrator's said that she does not let her go, but has no choice to let her go. Eventually, the narrator got remarried and the narrator was most of her time in the hospital, so she could deliver her second child named Susan, but most of the time Emily was left alone because she has the illness that caused her not see her mother or Susan. After all, that happens the sad part was that after she was sick she did not recover as easily they had hope like having terrible nightmares and the narrator wanted to comfort Emily but she could not because she had trouble to stop moving, and now Emily realizes that she does not want the comfort of her
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.
She states that she was the only child, out of the five she has total, that was beautiful from the very moment she was born. Emily was smart, “She blew bubbles of sound. She loved motion, loved light, loved color and music and textures. She would lie on the floor in the blue overalls patting the surface so hard in ecstasy her hands and feet would blur.”(Olsen 291). When Emily was eight months old, she needed to stay with a woman downstairs while the narrator looked for a job. Eventually, the narrator had to send Emily to live with her father and his family until she has raised enough money for her fare back. Emily’s father had left because he was scared of becoming poor so her mother was not to happy with this decision. When the narrator finally raised the money for Emily to come home, she had gotten the chicken pox and had to stay home. Once she was healed, she returned immediately. The narrator barely recognizes Emily when comes home. She says she is thin and looks like her father and was now two years old. This means she is old enough to go into nursery school; in order for the narrator to keep her job, she needed to take Emily there. Emily did not like it though, the narrator says “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”.(Olsen
When her Father dies, Emily cannot bury him because she feels like she has finally tamed him. Emily's father can no longer controll her. With his demise, Emily is now in control of her life, and in control of her father. The day after Emily's father died, the local women pay a visit to Emily. "Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on her fac...
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
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.
When her father passed away, it was a devastating loss for Miss Emily. The lines from the story 'She told them her father was not dead. She did that for three days,' (Charter 171) conveys the message that she tried to hold on to him, even after his death. Even though, this was a sad moment for Emily, but she was liberated from the control of her father. Instead of going on with her life, her life halted after death of her father. Miss Emily found love in a guy named Homer Barron, who came as a contractor for paving the sidewalks in town. Miss Emily was seen in buggy on Sunday afternoons with Homer Barron. The whole town thought they would get married. One could know this by the sentences in the story ?She will marry him,? ?She will persuade him yet,? (Charter 173).
Emily was lying in bed when all of a sudden she heard a loud knock on her door in the middle of the night. She went to go see who it was and fortunately it was her good old friend Johnny Surrat whom she hadn't seen in a long time, Johnny had said he was away on business, well he came in and he talked to her and asked how her and her mom were surviving since their slave had been set free before President Lincolns death. He gave her twenty gold pieces and said he was on an important mission and that he didn't know when he would be back. Emily lived with her mother who was dying. And she took care of her mother till the day she died. When her mother died at first she was kind of relieved that it was all over yet she really missed her mom. Before her mother had died, her mother told her whatever she did not to go live with her uncle but her uncle somehow got legal custody of her. And she was sent to go live with him. Her uncle said that he was a doctor and he had many patients that would come to his house and he would help many people and she always wondered why her mom hated him so much he seemed like a good man.
In Tillie Olsen's, "I Stand Here Ironing," a mother stands at her ironing board recollecting the life of her daughter Emily, who is now nineteen. She was not able to spend much time with Emily while she was growing up and feels guilty because of it. However, the mother’s poor parenting and abandonment of her daughter in a neglectful environment lead Emily to find her comedic talent, her ability to be independent and her great appreciation of everything early in life.
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.
Emily attempts to recapture her past by escaping from the present. She wants to leave the present and go back to a happier past. Miss Emily wants to find the love she once knew. “After her father’s death she went out very little; after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all” (243). Emily alienates herself from everyone when the two people she has loved most in her life go away. She becomes afraid to grow close to anyone in fear of losing them again.
In “A Rose for Emily”, by William Faulkner, Emily Geierson is a woman that faces many difficulties throughout her lifetime. Emily Geierson was once a cheerful and bright lady who turned mysterious and dark through a serious of tragic events. The lost of the two men, whom she loved, left Emily devastated and in denial. Faulkner used these difficulties to define Emily’s fascinating character that is revealed throughout the short story. William Faulkner uses characterization in “A Rose for Emily”, to illustrate Miss Emily as a stubborn, overly attached, and introverted woman.
From the beginning of Emily's life she is separated from those she needed most, and the mother's guilt tears at the seams of a dress barely wrinkled. Emily was only eight months old when her father left her and her mother. He found it easier to leave than to face the responsibilities of his family's needs. Their meager lifestyle and "wants" (Olsen 601) were more than he was ready to face. The mother regrettably left the child with the woman downstairs fro her so she could work to support them both. As her mother said, "She was eight months old I had to leave her daytimes" (601). Eventually it came to a point where Emily had to go to her father's family to live a couple times so her mother could try to stabilize her life. When the child returned home the mother had to place her in nursery school while she worked. The mother didn't want to put her in that school; she hated that nursery school. "It was the only place there was. It was the only way we could be toge...
“Miss Emily constantly for fifty or sixty years; they are anonymous townspeople, for neither names nor sexes nor occupations are given or hinted at; and they seem to be naïve watchers, for they speak as though they did not understand the meaning of events at the time they occurred. Further, they are of undetermined age. By details given the story there neither older nor younger nor of the same age as Miss Em...
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 girl with aspirations of growing up and finding a mate that she could soon marry and start a family, but this was all impossible because of her father. The father believed that, “none of the younger man were quite good enough for Miss Emily,” because of this Miss Emily was alone. Emily was in her father’s shadow for a very long time. She lived her li...
Growing up Emily’s father, Mr. Gierson, made her stay in the house and not socialize with others. He taught her that he was only trying to protect her from the outside world. Mr.Gierson was a rude man who felt that things should go his way; therefore, his daughter hopelessly fell for him because she did not know any oth...