26 pages • 52 minutes read
Tillie OlsenI Stand Here Ironing
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1961A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Stream of Consciousness
Stream of consciousness is a literary device meant to mimic natural thought patterns. Very few people actually think in words, or at least in complete sentences that proceed in linear fashion. Most relive experiences or connect words with abstract ideas. Often people will see, hear, or smell something that will remind them of something else. Occasionally, somebody will seek to solve a problem by thinking through their knowledge and experience. Stream-of-consciousness narration seeks to capture these psychological realities through things like run-ons, sentence fragments, and non sequiturs, as in this passage from “I Stand Here Ironing”: “Except that it would have made no difference if I had known. It was the only place there was. It was the only way we could be together, the only way I could hold a job. And even without knowing, I knew” (750).
As most of the story takes place in the narrator’s head, Olsen uses stream of consciousness to mimic her thought patterns. The story largely unfolds chronologically, but the most significant connections between events are psychological, revealing The Gendering of Guilt as the narrator reflects on how she mothered her eldest daughter. The technique also evokes the hectic nature of the narrator’s life, and thus The Competing Pressures of Motherhood and housework. Although the story begins with an attempt to answer a question about Emily’s upbringing, the narrator doesn’t have time to consider the issue methodically. As a mother, she must also continue to care for her children and do her ironing, ruminating in a loose, associative way as she does.
Figurative Language
Like many authors, Olsen uses figurative language to express ideas in novel ways. For example, when discussing Emily’s gift of acting and mimicry, the narrator says, “We have left it all to her, and the gift has so often eddied inside, clogged and clotted, as been used and growing” (753). In this quote, Olsen uses a metaphor to discuss Emily’s talent as if it were floating down a river. Through the use of words like “eddied,” “clogged,” and “clotted,” Olsen creates a more visceral sense of Emily’s struggles; she also links them to the natural world, suggesting that various societal pressures have interfered with life’s “normal” course.
Imagery
Olsen uses imagery—language that appeals to the senses—to emphasize the ways that Emily was neglected. For example, the narrator describes Emily’s return from her father’s relative as follows: “When she finally came, I hardly knew her, walking quick and nervous like her father, looking like her father, thin, and dressed in a shoddy red that yellowed her skin and glared at the pockmarks” (750). This is a vivid image. The reader can picture the yellow tone to the child’s skin, the harsh red of the cheap dress, and the chicken pox scars, illustrating how Emily’s life has changed since her mother outsourced her care. This use of imagery recurs throughout the text to assist the reader in understanding the effect of the less-than-ideal care Emily receives despite her mother’s efforts to meet her needs.
Dialogue
There isn’t much direct speech in “I Stand Here Ironing,” so the dialogue that does appear stands out. For example, when Emily is at the care facility, one of the employees says, “We simply do not have room for children to keep any personal possessions” (751). The tone of the sentence is official and unfeeling, making the depiction of the facility’s bureaucracy harsher and more impactful.
Much of the story’s dialogue involves remarks Emily said that make the narrator feel guilty. When being left alone, Emily asks, “Can’t you go some other time, Mommy, like tomorrow? […] Will it be just a little while you’ll be gone? Do you promise?” (750). Emily’s voice pleads in the narrator’s memory as she contemplates the times she might have failed her daughter, highlighting the extent of the narrator’s self-recrimination.
Related Titles
By Tillie Olsen
