I Stand Here Ironing

Last updated
"I Stand Here Ironing"
Short story by Tillie Olsen
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Publication
Published inPacific Spectator
Publication date1956

"I Stand Here Ironing" is a short story by Tillie Olsen 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 published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1961. [1] [2]

Contents

Along with "Tell Me a Riddle" (1960), "I Stand Here Ironing" is by far the most reprinted and anthologized of Olsen's fictional work. [3] [4]

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. [5] [6] [7]

The narrator is a working-class woman in her early forties who has four children, all daughters. 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 in the early 1930s. [8]

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. [9] [10] [11]

Characters

Background

While attending a course taught by Arthur Foff at San Francisco State University 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. [12]

Biographers Mickey Pearlman and Abby H. P. Werlock describe Olsen's circumstances while writing "I Stand Here Ironing":

[Olsen] carried her writing with her on the bus, at work, at night, during and after housework: no wonder, she says, the "first work I considered publishable began: 'I stand here ironing.'" [13]

Pearlman and Werlock add: "[D]espite 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." [14]

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." [15]

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. [16]

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." [17] Indeed, Olsen once, in "a slip of the tongue" referred her story as "I Stand Here Writing." [18]

Theme

"Part of what Olsen shows in her writing is that to varying degrees, women wield power even in patriarchal society and are, therefore, partially responsible for shaping and misshaping the lives within that society."—Literary critic Mara Faulkner in Protest & Possibility in the Writing of Tillie Olsen (1993) [19]

Biographers Mickey Pearlman and Abby H. P. Werlock declare the story to be "the most overtly autobiographical fiction Olsen has ever published..." [20] 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." [21]

The story was informed by Olsen's inability to write fiction while a teen-age single mother during the Great Depression through the post war 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." [22] [23]

According to literary critic Joanne S. Frye, the composition of "I Stand Here Ironing" was in part prompted by the 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and the subsequent Cold War 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." [24]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eudora Welty</span> American short story writer, novelist and photographer (1909–2001)

Eudora Alice Welty was an American short story writer, novelist and photographer who wrote about the American South. Her novel The Optimist's Daughter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. Welty received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Order of the South. She was the first living author to have her works published by the Library of America. Her house in Jackson, Mississippi has been designated as a National Historic Landmark and is open to the public as a house museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Dickinson</span> American poet (1830–1886)

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was an American poet. Little-known during her life, she has since been regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, into a prominent family with strong ties to its community. After studying at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she briefly attended the Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's home in Amherst. Evidence suggests that Dickinson lived much of her life in isolation. Considered an eccentric by locals, she developed a penchant for white clothing and was known for her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even to leave her bedroom. Dickinson never married, and most of her friendships were based entirely upon correspondence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamaica Kincaid</span> Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer

Jamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua. She lives in North Bennington, Vermont and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Jolley</span> Australian writer

Monica Elizabeth Jolley AO was an English-born Australian writer who settled in Western Australia in the late 1950s and forged an illustrious literary career there. She was 53 when her first book was published, and she went on to publish fifteen novels, four short story collections and three non-fiction books, publishing well into her 70s and achieving significant critical acclaim. She was also a pioneer of creative writing teaching in Australia, counting many well-known writers such as Tim Winton among her students at Curtin University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter De Vries</span> American editor and novelist

Peter De Vries was an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A Rose for Emily</span> Short story by William Faulkner

"A Rose for Emily" is a short story by American author William Faulkner, first published on April 30, 1930, in an issue of The Forum. The story takes place in Faulkner's fictional Jefferson, Mississippi, in the equally fictional county of Yoknapatawpha. It was Faulkner's first short story published in a national magazine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meridel Le Sueur</span> American writer and social activist

Meridel Le Sueur was an American writer associated with the proletarian literature movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Meridel Wharton, she assumed the name of her mother's second husband, Arthur Le Sueur, the former Socialist mayor of Minot, North Dakota.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tillie Olsen</span> American writer (1912 – 2007)

Tillie Lerner Olsen was an American writer who was associated with the political turmoil of the 1930s and the first generation of American feminists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jayne Anne Phillips</span> American writer

Jayne Anne Phillips is an American novelist and short story writer who was born in the small town of Buckhannon, West Virginia.

Melanie Tem was an American horror and dark fantasy author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feminist Press</span> American publishing house

The Feminist Press is an American independent nonprofit literary publisher of feminist literature that promotes freedom of expression and social justice. It publishes writing by people who share an activist spirit and a belief in choice and equality. Founded in 1970 to challenge sexual stereotypes in books, schools and libraries, the press began by rescuing “lost” works by writers such as Zora Neale Hurston, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Rebecca Harding Davis, and established its publishing program with books by American writers of diverse racial and class backgrounds. Since then it has also been bringing works from around the world to North American readers. The Feminist Press is the longest surviving women's publishing house in the world. The press operates out of the Graduate Center at the City University of New York (CUNY).

<i>Yonnondio</i> 1974 novel by Tillie Olsen

Yonnondio: From the Thirties is a novel by American author Tillie Olsen which was published in 1974 but written in the 1930s. The novel details the lives of the Holbrook family, depicting their struggle to survive during the 1920s. Yonnondio explores the life of the working-class family, as well as themes of motherhood, socioeconomic order, and the pre-depression era. The novel was published as an unfinished work.

<i>Tell Me a Riddle</i> (film) 1980 American drama film directed by Lee Grant

Tell Me a Riddle is a 1980 American drama film directed by actress Lee Grant. The screenplay by Joyce Eliason and Alev Lytle is based on the 1961 O. Henry Award novella from Tillie Olsen's collection of short stories of the same name. Tell Me a Riddle was Grant's first film as director. Grant and Eliason would later collaborate on David Lynch's Mulholland Drive.

Tillie Olsen: A Heart in Action is a 2007 documentary film directed and produced by Ann Hershey on the life and literary influence of Tillie Olsen, the U.S. writer best known for the books Tell Me a Riddle (1961) and Yonnondio: From the Thirties (1974). The film includes extensive interviews with Olsen and with prominent fans of her work, including writers Alice Walker and Florence Howe and feminist political leader Gloria Steinem.

<i>Let the Great World Spin</i> 2009 novel by Colum McCann

Let the Great World Spin is a novel by Colum McCann set mainly in New York City in the United States. The book won the 2009 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award, one of the most lucrative literary prizes in the world. Its title comes from the poem "Locksley Hall" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Midge Mackenzie</span>

Margaret Rose "Midge" MacKenzie, was a London-born writer and filmmaker who first become known for producing Robert Joffrey's multimedia ballet Astarte with the Joffrey Ballet, and Women Talking, a documentary with interviews of Kate Millett, Betty Friedan and other leading figures in the US women's liberation movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Jill Robinson</span> Canadian writer, editor and teacher (born 1955)

Jacqueline Jill Robinson is a Canadian writer and editor. She is the author of a novel and four collections of short stories. Her fiction and creative nonfiction have appeared in a wide variety of magazines and literary journals including Geist, the Antigonish Review, Event, Prairie Fire and the Windsor Review. Her novel, More In Anger, published in 2012, tells the stories of three generations of mothers and daughters who bear the emotional scars of loveless marriages, corrosive anger and misogyny.

Michelle Herman is an American writer and a Professor of English at The Ohio State University. Her most widely known work is the novel Dog, which WorldCat shows in 545 libraries and has been translated into Italian. She has also written the novel Missing, which was awarded the Harold Ribalow Prize for Jewish fiction. She is married to Glen Holland, a still life painter. They have a daughter.

<i>Tell Me a Riddle</i> Book by Tillie Olsen

Tell Me a Riddle is a collection of short fiction by Tillie Olsen first published by J. B. Lippincott & Co. in 1961.

Joanne Schultz Frye is a Professor Emerita of English and Women's Studies at the College of Wooster. Frye is known for her feminist literary criticism and interdisciplinary inquiry into motherhood. She specializes in research on fiction by and about women, such as the work of Virginia Woolf, Tillie Olsen, and Jane Lazarre.

References

  1. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 217-218: Selected Bibliography
  2. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 29-30
  3. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 6: "...anthologized more than 90 times..."
  4. ↑ Olsen, Tillie (1956). Tell me a riddle. New York: Dell. ISBN   978-0-440-38573-8. OCLC   748997729.
  5. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 20
  6. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 30
  7. ↑ Mambrol,2020
  8. ↑ ""I Stand Here Ironing": Motherhood as Experience and Metaphor". login.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au. Archived from the original on 2014-11-17. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  9. ↑ Mambrol, 2020: Plot summary
  10. ↑ Faulkner, 1993 pp. 116-119: Plot summary
  11. ↑ ""I Stand Here Ironing": Motherhood as Experience and Metaphor". login.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au. Archived from the original on 2014-11-17. Retrieved 2020-09-25.
  12. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 28: Foff "had nothing more to teach her..." And: Olsen: "I loved [Foff], and am deeply indebted to him..."
  13. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 121
  14. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 121
  15. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 29-30
  16. ↑ "Important Quotes Explained". Sparknotes. Retrieved 25 February 2021.
  17. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 21: Ellipsis in original by Frye, interview with Olsen And p. 32: See section on Metaphor and Metonymy
  18. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 23
  19. ↑ Faulkner, 1993 p. 104
  20. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 30
  21. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 20: minor ellipsis for brevity, meaning unaltered.
  22. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 21
  23. ↑ Pearlman and Werlock, 1991 p. 38: On Olsen's perennial theme of loss, of "[loss] of opportunity in 'Ironing'..."
  24. ↑ Frye, 1995 p. 23 And p. 36: The story "as part of a larger understanding of the need for social change."

Sources

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.