TILLIE OLSEN

"I STAND HERE IRONING"

Ols 1. Bauer, Helen Pike. "'A child of anxious, not proud, love':Mother and Daughter in Tillie Olsen's 'I Stand Here Ironing.'"Mother Puzzles: Daughters and Mothers in Contemporary AmericanLiterature. Ed. Mickey Pearlman. New York: Greenwood Press,1989. 35-39.

An examination of the relationship between the narrator of "I StandHere Ironing" and her daughter Emily suggests that the mother'smonologue, occasioned by the school counselor's request for a meetingto discuss Emily, is her attempt to understand her daughter and to ex-plain her daughter's behavior. While she reflects on the nineteen yearsof Emily's life, years filled with "displacement and deprivation" (35),she examines her own life as well and the choices that she made, accept-ing responsibility for the difficulties that Emily faced as a child (36). Buther reflection is not overburdened with guilt. As a young mother whosehusband abandoned her and eight-month-old Emily, she managed asbest as she could (36). Since "time is the first casualty of poverty" (36),the narrator, during Emily's infancy and childhood, suffered from timeconstraints and restrictions. She breast fed Emily according to a timeschedule set by authorities rather than responding to Emily's and herown natural requirements (36). Her need to work reduced the time shehad for Emily, time that was later available for her other children. Inaddition, the narrator's poverty contributed to her powerlessness (36):"The story is filled with expressions of compulsion and lack of choice"(36). Emily also faced the same difficult conditions as her mother, andshe, out of necessity, helped with the younger children, often to thedetriment of her school work. But both Emily and her mother, unlikethe absent father, did not give up (37). The mother possesses "strengthof character" (37) and intelligence, qualities that Emily shares and thathave enabled both of them to survive. In addition, Emily's talent forcomedy encourages a feeling of hope for her future (38). Still, the worldthat Olsen depicts is one of "poverty, monotonous labor, estrangement,and sickness" (38). But opposed to that harsh world are the mother'slove and desires for Emily, which do not include a hope of marriage

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and children for Emily but a wish that she be a secure individual with astrong identity (39). THEM

Ols 2. Fisher, Elizabeth. "The Passion of Tillie Olsen." Review ofTell Me a Riddle, by Tillie Olsen. The Nation, April 10, 1972: 472,474.

This review of Tell Me a Riddle, a collection of four stories, discussesOlsen's "masterpiece" (472), the title story, and then briefly mentionsthe others in the collection. "I Stand Here Ironing" is a tale that everyparent will recognize, a tale of "wanting to do the best for her daughter... [but of being] often forced to do the worst" (474). Even though thestory presents a picture of poverty and abandonment, it incorporates anote of hope because the characters endure. THEM, EORM

Ols 3. Frye, Joanne S. "'I Stand Here Ironing': Motherhood as Ex-perience and Metaphor." Studies in Short Fiction 18 (1981): 287-92.

Depiction or representation of motherhood in literature except as ametaphor for the creative process or as an obstacle in a male develop-ment pattern is rarely found (287). Olsen presents a realistic portrayal ofmotherhood in "I Stand Here Ironing" and simultaneously uses moth-erhood to explore the concept of selfhood (287). The story, ostensibly areflection on the daughter's life, is also an examination of the mother'sown (287). As the mother traces her daughter's development, she con-siders the options she had in satisfying her and her daughter's needs(288), and she does so without unnecessarily blaming herself (290). Butthe story moves beyond the narrator and her daughter and "becomes amediation on human existence, on the interplay among external contin-gencies, individual needs, and individual responsibilities" (288). Thestory argues for the necessary separateness of all individuals (288). Themother is not to be defined solely in her role as mother nor is Emily tobe considered solely her mother's creation (289). Emily is ultimately re-sponsible for her actions and for the establishment of a viable selfhood(289). However, societal pressures exert a force on individuals. In thecase of the narrator and her daughter, the depression and the ensuingpoverty, war and the absence of fathers and husbands, and inadequatechild care had an influence (290). Still the narrator accepts responsibilityfor her actions even though her options were limited by circumstances,just as Emily must (290). Emily makes choices, asserting herself as anindividual (291). The mother and her daughter's story provide a com-ment on the establishment of a selfhood, suggesting that each individ-ual must be responsible for creating a trustworthy life out of limitedchoices (291-92). EEM, THEM

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Ols 4. Frye, Joanne S. Tillie Olsen: A Study of the Short Fiction. NewYork: Twayne, 1995. Pp. 19-36,143-49.

Although the story seems (and is) autobiographical, it is also wellcrafted and deals with themes that are more than merely personal (20-21), including the ways larger circumstances inhibit and restrict indi-vidual lives (22). It is perhaps the first significant work of literature toemphasize a mother's perspective and voice, and it explores the prob-lem of "how to communicate inchoate life comprehensions, how toshape human circumstances into narrative forms that evoke the com-plexity of people's lives and elude the available cultural constructionsof those lives" (23). The narrative depends on an audience willing to lis-ten (25), and the whole tale achieves a dialogical structure, highlightingnot only a "projected dialogue with the external voice [of the counselor]but also the sense of the mother's internal dialogue" (26). Moreover,"the story asserts from the outset that narrative construction of past ex-perience is necessarily tentative and arbitrarily shaped by present cir-cumstance" (26). An important narrative pattern centers around con-stant interruptions, and "each interruption operates ... to create a shiftof emphasis or an alternative interpretation, reminding us that the nar-rative is only an interpretation of events, never a total rendering ofthem. In this way the story never becomes 'fixed'" (28). The work there-fore implies that "the narrative is a hypothesis, one possible answer, notan actual transcribing of life events" (29). In this non-linear organiza-tion, "two thematic concerns—the mother's anguish about societalharms and the daughter's increasingly independent existence—emergeas far more crucial guides for narrative selection than any concern withplot or narrative chronology" (30). "Resisting both the impositions oftraditional coherence and the simple renderings of a monological voice,the narrative becomes an internal dialogue capable of rendering vividlythe interactions between human hopes and possibilities and the con-straints set by circumstances" (31). Such a dialogical structure "enablesthe mother to look back at the controlling power of what could not behelped, and yet to discover what can still be changed" (31). Emphasison eye imagery is "a part of the story's other metaphorical patterns thatinvoke change, process, flexibility, and resistance to fixity: growth,nourishment, and interaction rather than rigidity, hunger, and separa-tion" (34). The story emphasizes experiences not often treated in litera-ture and makes those experiences available to various interpretations(35). In an interview about the story, Olsen stresses its rhythm, its"'back and forth movement as the iron itself moves'" (143). She notesthat because the story was written in the aftermath of the dropping ofthe first atom bomb, it emphasizes "'how precious young life, all life,is'" (144). Olsen questions conventional critical focus on the mother's"guilt," arguing that one "'is guilty only for what one oneself is re-sponsible for. But if the situation is that it's the terrible schools; the poor

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child care; the competitive putdown world; if it's exhaustion; if youcan't be there when needed and there's nobody else to care, then theanguish, anger, even powerlessness is a reality reaction. And to a situa-tion common with others. About which something can be done'" (146).For these reasons, to stress the mother's "guilt" is to deny society's re-sponsibilities. At the time she wrote the story, Olsen "'did not realize ...that this was the first time the direct voice of the mother herself ap-peared in literature'" (147). FORM, FEM, DIAL, MARX, THEM

Ols 5. Kamel, Rose. "Literary Foremothers and Writers' Silences:Tillie Olsen's Autobiographical Fiction." MELUS: Society for theStudy of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States 12 (1985):55-72.

The life experiences of Olsen—her lack of a college education, hermarriage to a laborer, her raising of her four daughters, her low-payingjobs, and her postponement of writing until the demands of a familylessened—are translated into her fiction (55-56). Her stories explore thedifficulty of life in the working class and the frustration of a womanwho is shunted into a domestic life with no creative outlet (56-57). InOlsen's fiction one finds "The tyranny of class struggle eroding the bod-ies and minds of workers and the children of workers; householddrudgery and child care undermining a woman writer's creativity" (58)."I Stand Here Ironing," published when Olsen was fifty (59), shows thatthe years when the narrator's daughter Emily was young were years ofhardship caused by low paying jobs and abandonment by the narrator'shusband (60). But the loneliness and emptiness of that period continueeven after her economic condition improves with her second marriage(60). The reason is that "Her entire adult life has been interrupted bychild care" (60). The narrator's language indicates her loss, an atrophy-ing of an inherent talent (60). Her daughter Emily also suffers from thelack of opportunity to express herself, even though she has wonthrough her acting "some attention and affection and to a limited extenta control of life's randomness" (61). She, resembling the dress that hermother is ironing, is flattened and oppressed by circumstances (61). Ex-amination of Olsen's "O Yes" and "Tell Me a Riddle" supports theclaim that Olsen is a writer who has broken the silence imposed by herworking class background and gender, thus empowering others to dothe same (71). MARX, HIST, FEM, THEM

Ols 6. Kloss, Robert J. "Balancing the Hurts and Needs: Olsen's 'IStand Here Ironing.'" Journal of Evolutionary Fsychology (March1994): 78-86.

The research of Nancy Chodorow and other psychologists helps ex-plain the effect the narrator's actions have upon the development of herdaughter Emily. Because of the twelve separations Emily undergoes.

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she learns that the world is not to be trusted (79). She suffers the deser-tion of her father and the absences of her mother (sometimes due to ajob or to the birth of a sibling). Her own illness occasions her beingplaced in a convalescent home (79). All of these actual or emotionalabandonments result in Emily exhibiting the symptoms of separationanxiety disorder, including sleeping and eating problems and depres-sion (80). Emily's eating disorders, manifested in her not eating in herearly childhood years and then eating ravenously later, can be linked tothe traumatic separations (82). Her lack of physical growth can be theresult of "emotional deprivation" but can also indicate a desire to avoidadulthood and the responsibilities that accompany it, responsibilitiesthat Emily faced at too early an age (82). Her nightmares, another symp-tom of separation anxiety disorder, begin with the birth of her sister Su-san, but her mother, either because of exhaustion or because of hostilitytowards Emily occasioned by her physical resemblance to her father,rarely comforts her (83). The mother's behavior—nursing Emily accord-ing to a book's schedule, not smiling at her (80), leaving her alone atfive so that she and her new husband can go out at night (81), and notcomforting her (83)—contribute to Emily's fear of separation. But theseevents also result in Emily's not having a clear sense of her own identity(84). Lacking the contact that normally occurs with smiling, nursing,and holding, Emily does not receive the mirroring that is necessary toestablish herself as an individual and thus validate her existence (84).The importance of Emily's discovering her talent as a comedian lies inthe fact that she realizes that she is somebody (84). Even so, the endingdoes not bode well for Emily; after all, she sees the world as being de-stroyed by a nuclear bomb (85). PSY, THEM

Ols 7. O'Connor, William Van. "The Short Stories of Tillie Olsen."Studies in Short Fiction 1 (1963): 21-25.

Placing "I Stand Here Ironing" in the context of other stories by Olsenreveals that often "Olsen writes about anguish" (21). The daughter in "IStand Here Ironing" is without hope and the mother cannot alleviateher daughter's despair (22). Characteristics of Olsen's stories include thefollowing: the universal is presented rather than particular details aboutspecific environments and individuals (24), chronology is ordered bythe character's thoughts, and the character is revealed through his orher thoughts and actions rather than through exposition (24-25).THEM, FORM

Ols 8. Orr, Elaine Neil. Tillie Olsen and a Feminist Spiritual Vision.Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1987. Pp. 77-85.

This "is a story, in religious terms, that cries for redemption (of themother's and child's loss) and for reconciliation, for coming back to-gether in terms of original promises" (77). "In the representation of a

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life in story, in interpreting history, Olsen seems to suggest that we ac-tually redeem individual and communal loss" (79). The story's tensionderives from its twin focus on past loss and the possibility of futuretransformation (79). The work is constructed through the mother's"sifting moral consciousness" (79): everything is seen from her perspec-tive and told in her voice (80). Contrasting images of the material andthe human help organize the work (80), and many passages link Emilywith machines (81). The three separations of the mother and daughterprovide the main plot developments (81) and are linked to the mother'sloss of time (82). "The story, then, concentrates on the time the motherand daughter did not have; that is, it calls to attention the mother's ab-sence and the daughter's alienation" (83). Because the work "presentsstruggle rather than resolution, cutting off in ambiguity rather than tri-umph," it implies "Olsen's historic perspective and her sense of realityas evolving through human relationships" (84-85). Readers come toshare in the mother's loss, hope, values, struggle, and transcendence(85). THEM, FORM, READ-R

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