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Human emotions and the effects of them
Human emotions and the effects of them
Changing perceptions of motherhood
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Motherhood in never guaranteed to by easy. Children definitely do not come with instruction manuals and even if they did there are so many variables, such as the national economy and unexpected single motherhood, that are beyond our control. The choices a mother has to make can cause numerous moments of second guessing and immense guilt. “I Stand Here Ironing” explores the perceived failures and gnawing guilt of a post- Depression era mother as she contemplates the childhood circumstances of her oldest, overlooked, and seemingly troubled child. Throughout the story Tillie Olsen takes us through the depths of a mother’s guilt due to pressures of the economy and society on parenting during her time and how much blame she puts on herself for her …show more content…
Social pressure to raise pleasant, good mannered children who become grounded and productive adults has been a driving influence for many generations. If our children do not fit into this mold then we’re considered failures are parents. Emily’s mother is tormented by the phone call which sets off a wave of maternal guilt. Emily’s mother was young and abandoned by her husband while Emily was still an infant so she had to rely on only herself and the advice of others while she raised her daughter. After Emily was born her mother, “with all the fierce rigidity of first motherhood, (I) did like the books said. Though her cries battered me to trembling and my breasts ached with swollenness, I waited till the clock decreed.” (Olsen 174). Then when Emily was two she went against her own instincts about sending Emily to a nursery school while she worked which she considered merely “parking places for children.” (Olsen 174). Emily’s mother was also persuaded against her motherly instincts to send her off to a hospital when she did not get well from the measles and her mother had a new baby to tend to. Her mother even felt guilt for her second child, Susan, being everything society deemed worthy of attention. Emily was “thin and dark and foreign-looking at a time when every little girl was supposed to look or thought she should look a chubby blond replica of Shirley Temple.” (Olsen, 177) she was also neither “glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn.” (Olsen 177), which her sister Susan had in
Intergenerational conflicts are an undeniable facet of life. With every generation of society comes new experiences, new ideas, and many times new morals. It is the parent’s job go work around these differences to reach their children and ensure they receive the necessary lessons for life. Flannery O’Connor makes generous use of this idea in several of her works. Within each of the three short stories, we see a very strained relationship between a mother figure and their child. We quickly find that O’Conner sets up the first to be receive the brunt of our attention and to some extent loathing, but as we grow nearer to the work’s characteristic sudden and violent ending, we grow to see the finer details and what really makes these relations
Throughout a person’s lifetime, an individual will have encountered an array of people with different qualities that make up their personalities. In general, people who are characterized as strong-willed are the one who have the initiative and they are risk takers. Also, they deviate from normalcy by looking for something new, different, or other ways of doing things because of the tedious situations they wound up in. As once Philosopher David Hume stated two hundred and fifty years ago that unlike those who deviate from the world of normalcy and clichés, most of the people go on with their lives in a “dogmatic slumber… so ensnared in conventional notions of just about everything that we don’t see anything; we just rehearse what we’ve been told is there” (Rosenwasser 4). In the anecdotal piece “Terwilliger Bunts One”, Annie Dillard has expressed her feelings and emotions towards her mother. Writing from the first person point of view, Annie Dillard also explains to her audience the attitude her mother took through many different circumstances and anecdotes that Dillard revealed thus admiring the personality of her mother as a child. By mentioning the qualities that her mother possesses, she is putting the spotlight on the impact her mother has made on her life using her parenting philosophy. The first parenting philosophy Dillard’s mother has taught her is to be very expressive in everything using surprising and strange-sounding words as part of the observation to other people. As Dillard recalls in her story, it happened when her mother heard the announcer on the radio cried out “Terwilliger Bunts one” and she started using this phrase as part of her “surprising string of syllables… for the next seven or eight years” (Dillard). ...
For years Miss Emily was rarely seen out of her house. She did not linger around town or participate in any communal activities. She was the definition of a home-body. Her father was a huge part of her life. She had never...
Emily’s mother is just a teenager when she had Emily. She did not have the money or resources to take care of her, so she had to let Emily live with her grandparents for a couple of years before she could get Emily back. When Emily was two, her mother finally got her custody of her, but Emily is not the little girl she remembered. When the mother first had Emily, she described her as a beautiful baby (302), but it changed when Emily became sickly and got scars from chicken pox. The mother said, “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. All the baby loveliness gone. (302)” Nevertheless, the mother is never there for Emily as she grew up. Emily tried to show her mother in different ways that she needed her, but she never seemed to catch the hint. For example, when Emily was two her mother sent her to a nursery school. The teacher of the nursery school was mistreating the children, and instead of telling her mother directly like the other kids told their parents, she told her in different ways. She always had a reason why we should stay home. Momma, you look sick. Momma, I feel sick. Momma, the teachers aren’t there today, they’re sick. Momma, we can’t go, there was a fire there last night. Momma, it’s a holiday
As time went on pieces from Emily started to drift away and also the home that she confined herself to. The town grew a great deal of sympathy towards Emily, although she never hears it. She was slightly aware of the faint whispers that began when her presence was near. Gossip and whispers may have been the cause of her hideous behavior. The town couldn’t wait to pity Ms. Emily because of the way she looked down on people because she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and she never thought she would be alone the way her father left her.
Having to send Emily in her early days to live with her father was a burdensome nuisance. All of Emily's father's attributes were rubbing off on her, "all of the baby loveliness gone," (p.
From the beginning of Emily's life she is separated from those she needed most, and the mother's guilt tears at the seams of a dress barely wrinkled. Emily was only eight months old when her father left her and her mother. He found it easier to leave than to face the responsibilities of his family's needs. Their meager lifestyle and "wants" (Olsen 601) were more than he was ready to face. The mother regrettably left the child with the woman downstairs fro her so she could work to support them both. As her mother said, "She was eight months old I had to leave her daytimes" (601). Eventually it came to a point where Emily had to go to her father's family to live a couple times so her mother could try to stabilize her life. When the child returned home the mother had to place her in nursery school while she worked. The mother didn't want to put her in that school; she hated that nursery school. "It was the only place there was. It was the only way we could be toge...
Eva’s lack of value for motherhood shaped the lives of her family as well as her own. Because of her negative feelings toward motherhood, many of the people surrounding her have similar values. Eva reflects her community’s negative perception of motherhood by being straightforward about it and passing it down through her family
In Toni Morrison’s novel Sula, readers are treated to the inner-workings of race, gender, and culture as the story is strung together by Morrison’s crafty usage of imagery and language. When the reader is first introduced to the characters that inhabit the bottom, intricate relationships that form an edgy dynamic makes the reader aware of the complexities that lie under the surface. Morrison soon focuses on the nature of motherhood and the ways in which the circumstances in a mother’s life impacts their abilities to conform to the archetype of a good mother. Morrison paints motherhood to be multi-faceted and, at times, heavily convoluted. Through her portrayals of Eva and Helene women and their inclinations to be mothers are shown in ways that
The short story “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen is the best short story because its setting, characters, and the story line grabs my attention as a reader. It is very easy for me to relate to the mother and the daughter in this short story. The short story illustrates the struggle of a relationship between a mother and daughter during a difficult time during the Great Depression. The narrator of the short story is a single, working mom. The short story starts with a phone call from a teacher or counselor to the mom regarding Emily, her daughter who seems to need help. The daughter in the story is name is Emily. The mom receives the phone call while she is ironing. The phone call prompts the mom to reflect back and reflect on their lives while Emily was growing up. During the entire reflection, the mom is standing their ironing and “moves tormenting back and forth with the iron” (Kirszner & Mandell, ).
Tillie Olsen’s intent in writing “I Stand Here Ironing” was to reveal the hardships of working class families and single parenting. Tillie Olsen's depiction of the convalescent home in the short story teaches the reader not to be deceived by only the outer beauty. The barrier in the convalescent home symbolizes obstacles and absence. Tillie Olsen teaches the importance of companionship and love in the portrayal of Emily and her mother. The time period fits perfectly with the short story, it gives an insight on how low-income families strive to survive.
Emily did not enjoy the popularity and excitement of the public life, unlike her father. So she began to pull away from it. In the presence of strangers Emily could be shy, silent or even depreciating. Emily felt that she did not fit in with her and her father’s religion in Amherst especially when he father started to censor the books she read because of their potential to draw her away from faith.
The short story, I Stand here Ironing, written by author, Tillie Olsen, is the best of the best. The title is a little misleading, however, the "iron" is symbolic, within the story. That is what makes the setting unique. Taking this story at face value is a crucial mistake, however, digging deeper into the depths of this story and realizing what the author is trying to convey, to the reader, is the reason it is the best. The similarities that many families still face, in today's society, are present within this story. We see an inexperienced mother's coming of age, we see the difficulties of trying to raise children as a single parent and how influences from outside sources, affect decision making, and we see how a child can overcome difficulties and defeat, in order to reach a level of triumph.
The short story “I Stand Here Ironing”, by Tillie Olsen, is a first person narrative that includes the protagonist’s memory flashbacks, which give context to the current dialogue. The story reads like a journalistic interview of the Mother, or a one-sided telephone conversation, using a cadence reminiscent of an Irish Mother, both self deprecating and desperately defensive. A back and forth exchange, between a forced explanation of her daughter’s awkwardness and an attempt to justify her own responsibility for contributing to those character flaws. She vacillates between short bursts of intense regret and frustrated pleading.
Our parents are not perfect. They brought us in this world to mold and shape us to the best of their abilities. The fact that remains is no matter whom our parents are, each one of them faces difficult obstacles when it comes to raising their children. “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen portrays an excellent example of a mother who shares with us the emotional burden of the circumstances she was forced to contend with in order to raise her oldest daughter, Emily. We are sympathetic to the woes of the mother’s situation, the struggle to obtain a better way of life for her and her daughter. We empathize with Emily, and her endeavors to maintain a stable relationship with her mother. It seems these two characters’ lives were set up for failure from the beginning. As the story unfolds, through abandonment, illness, and long-absences, the mother shows regret for the path she chose despite there being no other option.