I Stand Here Ironing
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"I Stand Here Ironing" is a short story by
Tillie Olsen Tillie Lerner Olsen (January 14, 1912 – January 1, 2007) was an American writer who was associated with the political turmoil of the 1930s and the first generation of American feminism, feminists. Biography Olsen was born to Russian Jewi ...
that first appeared in ''Pacific Spectator'' and '' Stanford Short Stories'' in 1956 under the title "Help Her to Believe." The story was republished in 1957 as "I Stand Here Ironing" in '' Best American Short Stories.'' The work was first collected in ''
Tell Me a Riddle Tell Me a Riddle is a collection of short fiction by Tillie Olsen first published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1961. The volume is composed of three short stories and a novella, the title piece “Tell Me a Riddle.” “Tell Me a Riddle” w ...
'' published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1961. Along with "Tell Me a Riddle" (1960), "I Stand Here Ironing" is by far the most reprinted and anthologized of Olsen's fictional work.


Plot introduction

The story is told in a first-person confessional narrative. Presented as an "interior monologue" or an "imagined dialogue," the work incorporates autobiographical elements from Olsen's early adulthood to her middle-age. The narrator is a working-class woman in her early forties who has five children, 3 daughters and 2 sons. At 19-year-of-age she had given birth to her first child, after which her husband abandoned them, coinciding with the onset of the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
in the early 1930s. Her narrative concentrates on recollections of raising Emily under these difficult circumstances. The hardships the young single mother endured to find work necessitated frequent absences from her daughter during her infancy and throughout her childhood. Emily was sent to her father's relatives for extended periods, as well as to a country convalescent home for children of indigent parents. These episodes are painful to the mother and particularly the daughter. The mother fervently hopes that her daughter, now an adult, will surmount her difficult childhood and achieve a measure of happiness.


Characters

*Emily — A shy nineteen-year-old girl. She is the oldest of five children. Emily had a very difficult childhood, but has recently developed a talent for comedic acting. She is
cynical Cynicism is an attitude characterized by a general distrust of the motives of others. A cynic may have a general lack of faith or hope in people motivated by ambition, desire, greed, gratification, materialism, goals, and opinions that a cynic p ...
about life and the world, despite her youth. She believes the
atomic bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear expl ...
will soon destroy everything; so there is no point in caring about anything. *Emily's father — deserted the family so as to not "share
poverty Poverty is a state or condition in which an individual lacks the financial resources and essentials for a basic standard of living. Poverty can have diverse Biophysical environmen ...
with them" less than one year after Emily's birth. *Emily's mother — A mother who is filled with regrets and worries about her daughter. She worked hard to support her family and take care of them, but in retrospect, she realizes there are many things she would have done differently if she could. *Emily's stepfather — called away to fight in World War II. *Susan — the second child, golden and curly haired, chubby, quick, articulate and sure. By the time Susan was born, her mother had remarried and gained enough experience to show more affection than when Emily was born. *Ronnie — the fifth child, a baby boy.


Background

While attending a course taught by Arthur Foff at
San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...
in 1954, Olsen submitted an early draft of "I Stand Here Ironing." Foff was so impressed by the story that he encouraged Olsen—who was often preoccupied with providing for her young children—to cease attending his class and begin writing independently. Biographers Mickey Pearlman and Abby H. P. Werlock describe Olsen's circumstances while writing "I Stand Here Ironing": Pearlman and Werlock add: " spite the fact that she still had domestic responsibilities, she was able to spend three days a week writing—and then had to return to work where she took jobs at Kelly girl and Western Agency girl." The story was first published in the Pacific Spectator and Stanford Short Stories in 1956 under the title "Help Her to Believe." In 1957, the work appeared in Best American Short Stories as "I Stand Here Ironing."


Literary Devices


Metaphor

One of the story's central metaphors is established in the opening line:
I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.
As the narrator irons her daughter (Emily)'s dress, she is also "ironing out" her daughter's path and problems. The act of ironing signifies smoothness and thus her hope for Emily to have a smooth life; though she is prevented from taking steps to achieve this goal. The word "tormented" suggests her sense of guilt for her lack of attention and care devoted toward Emily, thus causing the various problems her daughter faces. Meanwhile, while recounting the past, she falls back on the act of ironing and other endless chores for her defense, suggesting that, though guilty for her shortcomings as a mother, she can do nothing about it due to her never-ending cycle of domestic duties. On the domestic task of ironing clothing as a metaphor, Olsen offered this comparison: "written and rewritten and rewritten on the ironing board late at night...The very timbre, rhythm of the piece, the back and forth movement as the iron itself moves." Indeed, Olsen once, in "a slip of the tongue" referred her story as "I Stand Here Writing."


Theme

Biographers Mickey Pearlman and Abby H. P. Werlock declare the story to be "the most overtly autobiographical fiction Olsen has ever published..." Though "I Stand Here Ironing" comes the closest to autobiography of all her stories, the author-narrator is not a perfect equivalent to the character she presents. Literary critic Joanne S. Frye warns that such a parallel is "false and distracting...decidedly not the real issue." The story was informed by Olsen's inability to write fiction while a teen-age single mother during the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
through the
post war A post-war or postwar period is the interval immediately following the end of a war. The term usually refers to a varying period of time after World War II, which ended in 1945. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum, ...
years. Olsen enumerated the factors influencing the composition of the story, while she was still raising her younger daughters: "T]he writing time available to me; what is happening in my work and family life, and in the larger environment, in society." According to literary critic Joanne S. Frye, the composition of "I Stand Here Ironing" was in part prompted by the 1945 Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the subsequent
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
threat of nuclear annihilation, from which Olsen grasped "the contrast between nurturing care and incomprehensible destruction," a dilemma which Frye terms "the anguish of parental responsibility in an unsupportive society."Frye, 1995 p. 23 And p. 36: The story "as part of a larger understanding of the need for social change."


References


Sources

*Faulkner, Mara. 1993. ''Protest and Possibility in the Writing of Tillie Olsen.'' ''
University Press of Virginia The University of Virginia Press (or UVaP) is a university press that is part of the University of Virginia. It was established in 1963 as the University Press of Virginia, under the initiative of the university's then President, Edgar F. Shann ...
'', Charlotteville and London. * Frye, Joanne S. 1995. ''Tillie Olsen: A Study of the Short Fiction.''
Twayne Publishers Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research a ...
, New York. * * Leonard, John. 1994. ''Introduction'' to Tell Me a Riddle in Tell Me Riddle, ''Delta Books'' published by ''
Dell Dell Inc. is an American technology company that develops, sells, repairs, and supports personal computers (PCs), Server (computing), servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, computer peripherals including printers and webcam ...
'', New York. *Mambrol, Nasrullah. 2020. "Analysis of Tillie Olsen's Stories." ''Literary Theory and Criticism'', ''Literariness''. https://literariness.org/2020/06/22/analysis-of-tillie-olsens-stories/ Retrieved 19 November 2023. * Olsen, Tillie. 1961. ''Tell Me A Riddle.'' J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia. *Pearlman, Mickey and Werlick, Abby H. P.. 1991. ''Tillie Olsen.''
Twayne Publishers Gale is a global provider of research and digital learning resources. The company is based in Farmington Hills, Michigan, United States, west of Detroit. It has been a division of Cengage since 2007. The company, formerly known as Gale Research a ...
, Boston, Mass. {{ISBN , 0-8057-7632-X 1961 short stories American short stories Jewish American literature