What does the title I Stand Here Ironing mean?

What does the title I Stand Here Ironing mean?

The iron represents the chores and responsibilities that prevented the narrator from engaging with Emily’s life more profoundly. As the story’s title suggests, the narrator is constantly embroiled in the duties she must perform to effectively care for her family.

What is the message of I Stand Here Ironing?

In “I Stand Here Ironing,” Olsen suggests that the role of selfless mother that society expects women to embrace is actually an obstacle to any kind of successful self-discovery. Rather than help women achieve self-actualization, motherhood actually strands women in lives laden with toil and excessive responsibility.

What does the title of Tillie Olsen’s story I Stand Here Ironing?

That story became the title piece in a collection of four short prose works, Tell Me a Riddle (1961), which also featured “I Stand Here Ironing.” In 1974, Olsen finally published Yonnondio, the novel she had begun in 1932.

What is Emily’s attitude towards her mother in I Stand Here Ironing?

She’s generally quiet, and if she does want to express something, like her desire to see her mother, she does so indirectly. To others, she is virtually invisible: she doesn’t have the beauty or the charismatic personality that might attract attention.

What is the importance of point of view in I Stand Here Ironing?

The narrator’s stream-of-consciousness narration reflects the free-flowing, unstructured form of her thoughts and reveals her struggle to make sense of her situation and find logic among the fragments of her past.

What does the last paragraph of I Stand Here Ironing mean?

The end of the story suggests that Emily has gotten her wish. The story ends with a response to the teacher that sounds like a prayer: “Let her be.” The last paragraph’s opening has a biblical echo of “let it be” (or an echo of the Beatles song, depending on your frame of reference).

What topics are central in I Stand Here Ironing?

I Stand Here Ironing Themes

• Poverty, Labor, and Domestic Life.
• Female Identity.
• Time.
• Obedience vs.
• Responsibility and Guilt.

What is the conflict in the story I Stand Here Ironing?

In the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen the conflict between a mother whose giving is limited by hardships is directly related to her daughter’s wrinkled adjustment. Ironing, she reflects upon when she was raising her first-born daughter, Emily. The mother contemplates the consequences of her actions.

What is the historical context of I Stand Here Ironing?

“I Stand Here Ironing” is best understood in the context of two social forces that gripped the United States in the twentieth century: the lean years of the Great Depression and the burgeoning feminist movement of the 1950s and beyond.

Who is the narrator speaking to in the story I Stand Here Ironing?

The unnamed narrator, a mother, is ironing while speaking on the phone with an unnamed individual who is most likely a social worker, teacher, or counselor. The mother likens the back-and-forth motion of the iron to her own mental process as she considers the cautionary statement made by this outside party.

What are two themes of I Stand Here Ironing?

“I Stand Here Ironing” looks at the themes of women and femininity through the lens of a mother-daughter relationship. Struggling to make ends meet during the Great Depression, the narrator works long hours and is unable to care for her daughter.

Where is the narrator during the course of this story I Stand Here Ironing )?