I Stand Here Ironing
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"I Stand Here Ironing," by Tillie Olsen is an emotional short story dealing with limitations, missed opportunities, and the search for ones self. The story follows a mother's thought and memories about her troubled eldest daughter Emily, who she knows has the ability to break free from the life she has been forced to live. This story shows the complexity of finding the identity of a relationship and over coming obstacles thought impossible to others.
"I Stand Here Ironing" begins with the mother of Emily, who is also the narrator, ironing and thinking about how she was called to Emily's school to talk to a school official. She begins to thinks about Emily's childhood and the bad decisions she made for Emily that still have a continuing effect on Emily. As she tells the story, she draws many similarities for herself between remembering the events of Emily's early life and ironing the wrinkles for a dress. The mother remembers how she was abandoned by her first husband and had to leave Emily with her husband's parents for a year and a half. When Emily was two, her mother took her back and sent her to nursery school which Emily did not enjoy at all. The mother remembers how she was always a little worried about the fact that Emily was so thin and dark, yet so pure. She was worried about what all the purity would do to her in her later life...