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Women's roles in american culture with patriarchy
Women's roles in american culture with patriarchy
Women's roles in american culture with patriarchy
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The story begins with a sentence “I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron” (Olsen 73). It is unusual that the story starts with a description of the mother ironing. This strategy easily draws readers’ attention and introduces the narrator character to the readers. “I stand here ironing” is a very straightforward and simple description, but yet it conveys a deeper meaning and draws the readers into the narrative. The mother’s ironing provides the metaphor for the whole story. It acts as a vein circulating the whole structure of the story. It is a great metaphor that helps the readers to interpret the story in different levels and perspectives. Ironing can be regarded as a kind of women’s domestic work. And in our society it is assumed that ironing the clothes is one of a woman’s responsibilities. The assumption is due to people most likely are programmed by patriarchy. Women are responsible for taking care of the family and doing all the house works. Since the narrator is a single mother in the family, she not only needs to deal with...
Although, a mother’s determination in the short story “I Stand Here Ironing” mother face with an intense internal conflict involving her oldest daughter Emily. As a single mother struggle, narrator need to work long hours every day in order to support her family. Despite these criticisms, narrator leaves Emily frequently in daycare close to her neighbor, where Emily missing the lack of a family support and loves. According to the neighbor states, “You should smile at Emily more when you look at her” (Olsen 225). On the other hand, neighbor gives the reader a sense that the narrator didn’t show much affection toward Emily as a child. The narrator even comments, “I loved her. There were all the acts of love” (Olsen 225). At the same time, narrator expresses her feeling that she love her daughter. Until, she was not be able to give Emily as much care as she desire and that gives her a sense of guilt, because she ends up remarrying again. Meanwhile narrator having another child named Susan, and life gets more compli...
The two works of literature nudging at the idea of women and their roles as domestic laborers were the works of Zora Neale Hurston in her short story “Sweat”, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper”. Whatever the setting may be, whether it is the 1920’s with a woman putting her blood, sweat and tears into her job to provide for herself and her husband, or the 1890’s where a new mother is forced to stay at home and not express herself to her full potential, women have been forced into these boxes of what is and is not acceptable to do as a woman working or living at home. “Sweat” and “The Yellow Wallpaper” draw attention to suppressing a woman’s freedom to work along with suppressing a woman’s freedom to act upon her
The story of “Life in the Iron Mills” enters around Hugh Wolfe, a mill hand whose difference from his faceless, machine-like colleagues is established even before Hugh himself makes an appearance. The main narrative begins, not with Hugh, but with his cousin Deborah; the third-person point of view allows the reader to see Deborah in an apparently objective light as she stumbles tiredly home from work in the cotton mills at eleven at night. The description of this woman reveals that she does not drink as her fellow cotton pickers do, and conjectures that “perhaps the weak, flaccid wretch had some stimulant in her pale life to keep her up, some love or hope, it might be, or urgent need” (5). Deborah is described as “flaccid,” a word that connotes both limpness and impotence, suggesting that she is not only worn out, but also powerless to change her situation; meanwhile, her life is “pale” and without the vivid moments we all desire. Yet even this “wretch” has something to sti...
Since the story uses a certain object, the Jacket, as the meaning of several issues, it primarily focuses on the narrator's poverty-stricken family. First of all, an example of the poverty is demonstrated when the narrator complains that the jacket "was so ugly and big that I knew I'd have to wear it a long time"(paragraph 3). It is clear that his lack of money was a problem in which he would have to keep the jacket because he could not afford a new one. The narrator then feels embarrassed and upset by the jacket by stating "I blame my mother for her bad taste and cheap ways"(paragraph 10). By mentioning his mother's "cheap" ways he is conveying that he is aggravated because of his mothers option to choose bad and ugly clothes in ord...
“I am a large, big boned woman with rough, man-working hands” Mama describes of herself in the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Mama, who additionally takes the role of narrator, is a lady who comes from a wealth of heritage and tough roots. She is never vain, never boastful and most certainly never selfish. She speaks only of her two daughters who she cares deeply for. She analyzes the way she has raised them and how much she has cared too much or too little for them, yet most of all how much they value their family. Mama never speaks of herself, other than one paragraph where she describes what she does. “My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside all day, breaking ice to get water for washing” (Walker, 60). She does not need to tell readers who she is, for her descriptions of what she does and how her family interacts, denotes all the reader needs to know. Although Mama narrates this story rather bleakly, she gives readers a sense of love and sense of her inner strength to continue heritage through “Everyday Use”.
The stories “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen and “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, are different in many ways, but are also similar. “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Everyday Use” both focus on the relationships of the mother and daughter, and on the sibling’s relationships with each other. Emily from “I Stand Here Ironing” and Maggie from “Everyday Use” have different relationships with their mothers, but have similar relationships with their sisters. Although the stories are similar in that Emily and Maggie are both distant from their sisters, they differ in that the mother is distant from Emily in “I Stand Here Ironing,” while the mother is close to Maggie in “Everyday Use.”
Olsen presents mother in I Stand Here Ironing as a woman of compassion because she is bringing back all of her memories of her daughter, Emily’s life and putting them into perspective of how the cards that she was dealt in life could not have been changed because the situation was just that, she was low on money and too young to fully grasp what being a mother was all about without reading from
Since people could not run around naked someone had to make the clothes or buy them and that was the women. “And the mother mends Harry’s stockings (Gorn 49).” Once again it states the “mother” as the one doing this chore. The women on the trail though it shows had little time to care about mending clothes, “The majority of the overland women wore what clothing they had and prayed that what they wore would not tear. They were too preoccupied with the necessities of the day to consider fashion at all (Schlissel 105).” I would be happy if I were these women because that just means one less chore that was their “duty” to perform.
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. The mother's life had been interrupted by childbirth, desertion, poverty, numerous jobs, childcare, remarriage, frequent relocations, and five children. Her struggling economic situation gave way to little or no opportunity to properly care for and nurture her first-born child. In spite of the attention and love Emily craved and never received, she still survived, and even made strengths, and talents, out of the deprivations she had endured.
Next, by examining the symbols that Mason uses in this short story, the battle that is going on inside this marriage is revealed. Beginning with the dust ruffle that Mabel, Norma Jean’s mother, makes for her. This dust ruffle represents the hidden feelings and emotions that Norma Jean and Leroy keep from each other. One example is, the grief they feel over the death of their infant son, Randy. Even when Mabel brings up the death of another child, they only discuss Mabel’s intentions, but say nothing about the grief of losing their baby. Norma Jean tells Leroy that her mother, “ … just said that about the baby because …...
Author Alice Walker, displays the importance of personal identity and the significance of one’s heritage. These subjects are being addressed through the characterization of each character. In the story “Everyday Use”, the mother shows how their daughters are in completely two different worlds. One of her daughter, Maggie, is shy and jealous of her sister Dee and thought her sister had it easy with her life. She is the type that would stay around with her mother and be excluded from the outside world. Dee on the other hand, grew to be more outgoing and exposed to the real, modern world. The story shows how the two girls from different views of life co-exist and have a relationship with each other in the family. Maggie had always felt that Mama, her mother, showed more love and care to Dee over her. It is until the end of the story where we find out Mama cares more about Maggie through the quilt her mother gave to her. Showing that even though Dee is successful and have a more modern life, Maggie herself is just as successful in her own way through her love for her traditions and old w...
Quilts symbolize a family’s heritage. Maggie adheres the tradition by learning how to quilt from her grandmother and by sewing her own quilts. Maggie also puts her grandmother’s quilts into everyday use. Therefore, when Dee covets the family’s heirloom, wanting to take her grandmother’s hand-stitched quilts away for decoration, Mama gives the quilts to Maggie. Mama believes that Maggie will continually engage with and build upon the family’s history by using the quilts daily rather than distance herself from
While the girl loved the work outside she hated to do the ‘woman’s work’ inside. She disliked her mother for making her do it, and believed that her mother only made her do it be...
The mother’s genuine care for her daughter in girl is displayed through her imperative instructions. The mother decides to transfer her domestic knowledge and life experience to her daughter in order to shape her daughter’s behavior from a young age. She gives out detailed instruction on how to “sew a button, how to hem a dress when the hem coming down to how to iron a khaki shirt so that it does not have a crease” (Kincaid). Although heming a dress is not a difficult chore, the mother emphasizes the its importance since she understands that the appearance of clothing reflects a woman’s character. Because domestic skills serve as a measurement for women’s competence and self-worth, the daughter’s inability to take care of her clothes will indicate her lack of interest in household affair and organizational skills. Through these advice, the mother highlights the importance of house...
Many women in modern society make life altering decisions on a daily basis. Women today have prestigious and powerful careers unlike in earlier eras. It is more common for women to be full time employees than homemakers. In 1879, when Henrik Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, there was great controversy over the out come of the play. Nora’s walking out on her husband and children was appalling to many audiences centuries ago. Divorce was unspoken, and a very uncommon occurrence. As years go by, society’s opinions on family situations change. No longer do women have a “housewife” reputation to live by and there are all types of family situations. After many years of emotional neglect, and overwhelming control, Nora finds herself leaving her family. Today, it could be said that Nora’s decision is very rational and well overdue.