In ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ by Tillie Olsen, the story begins with a nameless mother ironing. She is talking to a person about her daughter Emily and how she was a beautiful baby but became fragile as the years went by. Emily is described as a wise child who desperately wanted attention from her mother. At the age of seven, the mother sent Emily to a nursery school where the adults could take better care of her. Years later, the mother had another child named Sarah.
Emily was jealous of Sarah because she was seen as the social and beautiful one. The mother points out that Emily resented her for her absence in her childhood. The mother attempts to bond with Emily by encouraging her to enter a school amateur show. Emily ends winning the show by telling jokes for the audience. The story ends with the mother admitting that Emily was influenced by depression, fear, and war.
In ‘I Stand Here Ironing’ by Tillie Olsen the story begins with a mother ironing in her home.
Just by the setting, the story is already hitting a point of family and home. During the Depression Era before the government interfered with the well being of the country was the time of Emily’s birth, the first child of the nameless mother. An interpretation of such magnitude with very little explanation is the setting. The hardworking mother during the Depression Era had to be cold to Emily so that she could provide for everything alone.
The setting reeled me into what I thought was going to be a simple story of a mother working hard. But it was more than that, I was sympathetic to the hardworking mother who sacrificed her own happiness of bonding with her first child for the ability to provide instead.
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