I Stand Here Ironing

In the short story by Olsen, "I Stand Here Ironing," one of the themes is a mother's regret. As the mother stands at her ironing board pressing a dress, she recounts the childhood of her eldest...

Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" is told as an interior monologue held by the mother who has been contacted by school officials about her daugther. The monologue of the narrator/mother...

The opening line of Tillie Olsen's short story, "I Stand Here Ironing," is a metaphor for the ambivalence of the mother about her skills as a parent and about the future of her oldest daughter when...

Conflict can be subdivided into two major categories: internal and external. "I Stand Here Ironing" contains both, but the main conflict is internal. The narrator is struggling with herself. She is...

In the last line of the story, the narrator hopes that her daughter, Emily, whom she fears has suffered as a result of her weak parenting skills, will know "that she is more than this dress on the...

I think it is towards the close of the story that we get the surprising, full import of the relationship between the mother, the daughter, and the iron in Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing”...

In "I Stand Here Ironing," our unnamed narrator is thinking to herself about a meeting to talk about her daughter, Emily. Throughout the course of the text, the mom thinks about the difficult...

One key principle in this monologue is the powerlessness the narrator feels over daughter. There is a pervasive feeling of disappointment in this relationship despite the narrator's best efforts...

In Tillie Olsen’s story, the narrator’s main emotions regarding her daughter, Emily, are acceptance and guilt. She he knows that she did her best raising Emily in difficult circumstances, as the...

Tillie Olsen writes about a mother who has made many mistakes in raising one of her children. The story “I Stand Here Ironing” brings to the reader an unnamed narrator who has been burdened by...

Based on the information that Tillie Olsen provides, a case can be made to consider the narrator of “I Stand Here Ironing” reliable or unreliable. Because the mother is a first-person narrator,...

In "I Stand Here Ironing," the narrator (Emily's mother) does not love her other children more, however, she is alone when Emily is a baby because Emily's father left them before Emily was a year...

The central idea of "I Stand Here Ironing" is the fragility of the mother-daughter relationship within the context of single motherhood. The narrator highlights the central idea through a...

Perhaps, one reason for the intensity and importance of the guilt that the mother feels in the story can be seen in its closing. It becomes clear that the mother understands that she has missed a...

Emily's mother failed, through no fault of her own, to provide Emily with the bonding, attention, and support babies and children need. They were separated for long periods of time, and Emily...

In "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen, the mother of Emily, who loves her daughter, delights in remembering what a beautiful baby she was and how Emily loved motion, light, color, music, and...

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total? I will start and there will be an interruption and I will have to gather it all together again. Or I will become...

You might want to focus particularly on the way in which Olsen uses imagery to express the thoughts of the typical mother who is run ragged and absolutely exhausted. In particular, a stylistic...

I believe the Emily's relationship with her sister Susan is the only one discussed in the story because it is the one most significant to her. The narrator, Emily and Susan's mother, says that,...

The relationship of the speaker of this monologue with her daughter is one that is characterised by past hurts and regret. In particular, it is clear that the speaker feels real guilt about the...

The literal setting is in a simple room with a woman ironing. This act sets the mood of helplessness. No matter how many times a person irons an article of clothing, the next time it is washed...

Tone, which is an integral part of a narrative, is produced by the writer's diction as well as stylistic choices concerning syntax, line or sentence length, imagery, and other figurative language....

The context of this quote in the story is that Emily's mother, who is home ironing, receives a call from someone--perhaps a school administrator: principal, guidance counselor or social...

The conflict that is evidenced in this powerful monologue takes the form of both internal and external, as the mother battles with her own sense of internal guilt concerning the decisions that she...

As the narrator, the mother in the story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is ask by someone to discuss her daughter Emily and ways that she can be helped. The mother then reflects on the...

By the time Emily returned from the convalescent home, she had been traumatized by years of instability and insufficient nurturing. Her mother had had her as a teenager, and although she had tried...

The monologue in "I Stand Here Ironing" seems to have been prompted by a telephone call from Emily's college counselor, part of which is quoted in the second paragraph. "I wish you would manage...

One theme that conveys itself, in part, through setting is the theme of deprivation. The historical time period here is the Great Depression and the years of WWII. The Depression is a time of...

At the time of the setting of "I Stand Here Ironing," divorce was not common, nor was the abandonment of a father from his family. So, when Emily's mother is separated from her husband she feels...

Both short stories—“I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, published in 1961, and “Two Kinds” by Amy Tan, published in 1989—discuss a mother-daughter relationship, and in the description of these...

Emily's mother, the narrator, is a woman who has many regrets. She is loving and well-meaning, but guilt-ridden at the ways she feels she failed her oldest daughter Emily in her raising, and angry...

It is a well-known fact that many great comedians suffer from depression, and comedy is their way of discharging this emotion and fighting back at this darkness of the soul. It seems that this may...

In I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen, the mother is trying to explain or understand the reasons why she and Emily have the unsatisfactory relationship they have and why Emily is the way she is....

"I Stand Here Ironing" is a short story written by Tillie Olsen. The narrator of the story explores the role her imperfect mothering may have had on her teenaged daughter, Emily. The narrator is...

Rising action is defined as the events that develop from the conflict of a story--beginning with the action that incites the conflict--and lead to the climax. The climax is defined as that point in...

In Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing," the mother's internal monologue indicates her guilt over her neglect of Emily while she was forced to work and care for her other children. In fact these...

In the short story "I Stand Here Ironing" by Tillie Olsen, the mother of a 19-year-old young woman named Emily has been approached by a teacher or counselor to discuss her daughter. As she irons,...

Emily was born during the depression, and the mother had to leave her with neighbors when she went to work. Although she nursed her daughter, she did so according to a rigid schedule because that...

The iron represents the life of hard work and drudgery the single mother who narrates the story endures as she raises her children. The mother, as she irons, dwells on her oldest daughter—who she...

Emily is the oldest daughter in the short story, I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen. Life has been hard on her mother who, only nineteen herself, was left with Emily to care for when Emily's...

To develop a good paper, you need to start with a thesis that you can support well. And to be able to support a thesis well, you need to begin with a position that speaks to you personally. Here...

The enquiry about Emily made by an unspecified person, possibly a teacher or a friend, prompts the mother to think about her daughter. The question about her daughter, with whom she is deeply...

The stream of consciousness technique takes a reader inside a character's mind, revealing perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of a character on a conscious or unconscious level. This technique...

The mother's circumstances affect her ability to care for Emily markedly. This arise through her context and the specific chain of events she suffers. As she notes, " ''Her father left me...

In Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing,” the mother’s ironing can be seen as symbolic because, just as an iron pushes the wrinkles out of a piece of clothing, the mother has, through circumstances...

The act of ironing is arduous work. When you iron you must stand to do it; you must be careful of how you do it so as not to miss a part or to iron in a worse wrinkle than already exists. When...

I think that Emily is insecure and she is afraid of trying to succeed because she has been told she cannot. As Emily's mother says, Emily was, "a child seldom smiled at." That, coupled with being...

The significant title of this short story by Lillie Olsen points to the metaphor of the mother passing the iron back and forth as she gauges the past against the present and forms a pattern of her...

The major topic under consideration in this excellent example of a monologue is the mother-daughter relationship and the perception of the mother as she reflects on her daughter and their...

In Tillie Olson's short story "I Stand Here Ironing," the narrator reflects on her life and has a conversation with herself as though she was talking with her daughter, Emily. Emily's school has...