...Todd Carroll English 102 3/2/16 I Stand Here With Freud Psychoanalytic criticism focuses on a work of literature as an expression in fictional form of the inner workings of the human mind. This means that authors write about what goes on in their subconscious life. They write about what makes them as a person without the author actually knowing it. Tillie Olsen, the author of “I Stand Here Ironing,” was born into a middle class working family. She was born before the Great Depression, which means she grew up during it. “ I Stand Here Ironing” took place during the Great Depression and the main character is Emily. Emily is the first born in the family and she was the only baby that was beautiful at birth. She is a loner who has always been self-conscious of her dark hair and complexion; this makes her insecure. Through out the story the reader learns what the mom had to go through in order to raise her children. At the beginning of “I Stand Here Ironing” an unknown character tells the narrator that her daughter Emily needs help. The mother then goes to explain that there is nothing she can do for her at this point. Emily grew up a beautiful baby but she was troubled by illnesses. Her father had to leave their family to go find work. This was a normal thing to do during the depression but it left her mother alone with her. In the story you learn that the mother would work any job just to provide for Emily. As Emily grew up her appearance changed and her skin got...
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...Tillie Olsen Biography Tillie Lerner Olsen is recognized for her impressive poetic writing skills that illustrates the lives of the common laborers, women and people of other races. Tillie Lerner was born on January 14, 1912 in Omaha, Nebraska. She is the second of six children of Samuel and Ida Lerner who was a Russian – Jewish immigrant. Her parents’ social beliefs played a big role in her. Growing up, Tillie was an avid reader. However, in 1927 at the age of 15, she withdrew herself from school and worked at various minimum paid jobs in different states which then led her to California. Being a political activist in the Socialist community, Olsen was arrested for making loud disturbing noises while setting up a packinghouse. Her experience then led her to write her very first book, Yannondio: from the Thirties, in which was not published after forty years later (“Olsen”). In 1933, Tillie moved to San Francisco, California along with her daughter, Karla. While in San Francisco, Tillie met Jack Olsen who later became her lifetime partner. They both shared their interest in human rights and justice. Jack and Tillie had four daughters, Karla, Julie, Kathie and Laurie. The living conditions of raising a family while being a political activist disabled Tillie to continue her writing. However while living in San Francisco, she began to be recognize for her hard work against racism, women’s right, anti-war and for the safety of the individuals. To give even more recognition...
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...Literary Critique of “I Stand Here Ironing” Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” focuses on a mother who receives a phone call while ironing, about her eldest child Emily. The call comes from a school guidance counselor asking her to make time to see her so they could discuss helping Emily. While listening, the mother partakes in a mental or interior monologue of her first born child’s life, and how being a single teen mother facing poverty shaped her daughter into who she is to today; a stiff, awkward ,and isolated young woman. Although there are various angles in which to analyze this text, the prominent angle is how society, especially in the 1930’s, view of women and motherhood have affected the narrator in her way of raising Emily. A sociological critique of I Stand Here Ironing by Tillie Olsen examines a wide range of social and feminist issues throughout the short story. Theses social ills have left the narrator with a strained psyche and have her questioning her parenting. I “Stand Here Ironing” is a short story in which the reader gets a mental image of the way it was for the narrator to raise her child alone. The narrator was a single mother at the age of nineteen, living during the latter years of the Depression. As a single mother during the depths of the Great Depression it was an especially hard time. The narrator describes the world in which her first child, Emily was born into. “It was the pre-WPA world of the depression” (290). Emily’s mother struggled to...
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...was hit with the worst economic depression of the twentieth century. It lasted over a decade and resulted in twenty five percent of the population without jobs. What was once the land of opportunity was now the land of desperation. In “I Stand Here Ironing” a mother looks back on her struggle of raising her daughter Emily, during the great depression. The author, Tillie Olsen, uses the setting of the book to explain the decisions the mother made and the lasting effect it had on her daughter. [ Informative] The story begins with Emily’s mother ironing some clothes for the following day. The reader is witnessing an internal discussion she is having with herself, over her oldest daughter Emily. A teacher from school has called her voicing her concerns about helping Emily who seems to be troubled. Unlike most mothers, this news does come with concern but more of frustrating. Emily’s mother clearly expresses her schedule and does not believe that she could provide much help anyways. “ “Who needs help.”… Even if I came, what good would it do? You think because I am her mother I have a key, or that in some way you could use me as a key? She has lived for nineteen years. There is all that life that has happened outside of me, beyond me.” (Tillie Olsen, 283) To her mother Emily has already passed the point of change and will always be who she is. She realizes that she is a big part of how she grew up but thinks that her decisions were needed for the time. With the situation of...
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...Absence of Affection Seen in “I Stand Here Ironing” Babies need love and affection and when they get older they need a proper support system and a stable foundation to help them in becoming a suitable adult. In the text “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen tones of sympathy, honesty, and guilt are shown through the narrator as she recollects the events in raising her daughter Emily. This text shows how neglect in a child’s raising can alter the personality and how they express themselves over time. Tillie Olsen does a respectable job of presenting an unhealthy relationship between mother and daughter. In “I Stand Here Ironing” daughter Emily has a rough life full of mental issues due to her mother’s neglect and lack of affection given. The narrator living in a time of depression, is enable to contribute into the life that Emily would need, and being a single mother she sent her daughter away to be cared for by others avoiding the nurture that is needed by a child. “I used to try to hold and love her after she came back…. after a while she’d push away,” indicates discomfort between the two. After having so much distance between the two there was not a love and connection that a mother would usually obtain with their child, which doesn’t allow a family relationship. The narrator remarries and has another child, at the time Emily is sick and they send her away once more to protect the newborn. At the convalescent center Emily tries to reach out about the mistreatment that...
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...Every time that I’m hearing the word “Freedom”, I’m seeing a lot of things going on with it. If someone has it, he or she could do a lot of things in the world because they have a power to do things to make themselves better. There are three short stories, which the protagonist of the stories had the freedom. One of the stories, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin that talks about Mrs. Mallard saw a freedom for herself after having a thought that her husband is dead, but she felt it in just a moment. Second, the “A&P” by John Updike, which talks about Sammy who discovered freedom after he saw himself having more and better opportunities after he quits his job. The last is the story of Tillie Olsen “I Stand Here Ironing”, which talked about...
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...Literary Analysis of I Stand Here Ironing By: Tillie Olsen Tiffin University Jeremy Vernon September 28, 2013 Cohort 19 ENG 365 Issues In Literature The story I Stand Here Ironing is the story of a mother looking into her past looking back at how she raised her daughter Emily. The title of the story is in its self a metaphor, I Stand Here Ironing. When one is ironing an item of clothing they are looking at something that has problem in it and working to fix those problems using the iron. Throughout the story Emily’s mother looks back at her life and how she raised Emily with regret and sorrow, she thinks how things could have been different or what she could have done to make them better. In the beginning she talks about how she nursed Emily, and all of her children, but with Emily she followed all the books and would not feed her until the clocks said that it was time to feed her. This was one of the earliest regrets that she expressed. This is also the introduction of food into the story which is to be talked about more later, food is going to represent another issue other than hunger. Later in Emily’s life her mother had gotten a job working at night, during this time she was forced to leave Emily with a person to care for her at night. This was another point of regret for Emily’s mother as she felt that no one could care for her the way that she did since she was her “miracle.” (Olsen, 2011) At the age of nineteen Emily’s mother felt that it would be best for her...
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...A&P John Updike As I began to read A&P by John Updike, I began to relate to Sammy. I relate to his views on the girls and I relate to how he is not assimilated into the group at A&P. When seeing girls in bikinis that are attractive, it is natural for a teen to stop and look. Sammy reacted the same way I would have, by checking them out. The girls relate to Sammy because they defy the normal standards of the store. This is just like Sammy. Sammy is a sarcastic guy who is not trying to climb the corporate ladder at A&P. He is unlike his co worker, Stokesie, who is trying to be promoted. I felt like Sammy represents an everyday teen. He works for extra cash and he checks out girls. Having finished the reading, I realized that the girls were a symbol for him. This symbol was to defy the standards of society and do what you want. As I reread and studied A&P, I noticed the connection between Sammy and the girls. Sammy intently looks at each of the three girls. He uses descriptive words...
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...the surface level. And, the stories inspire the reader to do the same. Tillie Olsen’s “I Stand Here Ironing” is a short story that also gives an idea of what the author finds meaningful in life. The story opens with a mother on the phone with someone calling about her daughter, Emily. It is never specifically stated who it is, but it is assumed to be a guidance counselor or a service worker. The first few lines set the mood of the story by saying “I stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron” (Olsen 223). Like the motion of this iron, the story reflects on the daughter’s life back and forth, progressing and regressing between hope and despair. The mother then begins to explain the events in Emily’s life to the person she is speaking to. At eight months old, Emily’s father left the family because he could not take the life of poverty any longer and Emily was put in the care of her neighbor because her mother had to work. At the age of two, Emily moved back with her family but, she was placed in a day care because her mother had no other options. Emily always found “a reason why she would stay home” (Olsen 224) because she would want to stay with her mother. This is important because Emily is showing that she is longing for that bond with her mother. When Emily was young, she had a severe case of measles and now, she was still frail and “skeleton thin” (Olsen 225). The person on the phone with Emily’s mother suggests she goes to this...
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...Shayna Mayoh October 8, 2012 Tooele Eng. 1010 Essay #1 Destiny Destiny: the events that will necessarily happen to a particular person in the future. When a child is born is that child already destined to be like his/her parents? When our parents, siblings, or friends make mistakes do we learn from them? Do we change ourselves to be better because of the things in life that go on? Can we in a way choose our own destiny or does fate decide for us? In “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, the daughter was born with a disability/illness. The mother did nothing to make her have this illness. The daughter was going to have it when she was born no matter what the mother did. The mother did not have this illness, so in this way she was not fated to be like her mom. Although this doesn’t mean the daughter was completely different then the mother, she could have acted the same maybe had the same personality as her mother. The personality that a child is born with is not necessarily going to be there personality for the rest of their life. As you grow older you change and is changes with you. When you meet new people you sometimes want to be like them so you will change your way of doing things to be like them, where at other times you meet people you don’t want to be like so you do everything you can not to be like them. Do the people we love most make mistakes, even if we don’t realize it at the time it happens? When they do, do we look back and try to make ourselves...
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...Through the theme of family relationships in the 20th century, the stories of Scott Fitzgerald’s Babylon Revisited and Tillie Olsen’s I Stand Here Ironing, both depict how the absence of a child’s parents during their childhood led into a negative change in the child’s character. In order to understand Fitzgerald’s and Olsen’s stories it is important to know what child neglect is and the harmful effects it causes to the child. Child neglect is a lack of parental care. The amount of damages that child neglect causes in a child’s life can be irreversible. A parent has to provide enough care in order to meet the substantial needs of the child. During their rearing children cannot provide for themselves because he or she does not have the ability to effectively manage their life, unless they are assisted by their parent or caretaker. Parents duty consist of helping their child transition...
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...2013B Carefully read the following excerpt from the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Dabydeen uses literary techniques to convey Max’s complex attitudes toward place. ‘Where d’you come from?’ Max was used to the question; used to being told no as well. He walked away, feet kicking hard ground, telling himself that Line he must persevere. More than anything else he knew 5 he must find a job before long. In a way being unemployed made him feel prepared for hell itself even though he knew too that somewhere there was a sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he...
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...2013B Carefully read the following excerpt from the short story “Mammita’s Garden Cove” by Cyril Dabydeen. Then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze how Dabydeen uses literary techniques to convey Max’s complex attitudes toward place. ‘Where d’you come from?’ Max was used to the question; used to being told no as well. He walked away, feet kicking hard ground, telling himself that Line he must persevere. More than anything else he knew 5 he must find a job before long. In a way being unemployed made him feel prepared for hell itself even though he knew too that somewhere there was a sweet heaven waiting for him. How couldn’t it be? After all he was in Canada. He wanted to laugh all of 10 He continued walking along, thoughts drifting back to the far-gone past. Was it that far-gone? He wasn’t sure . . . yet his thoughts kept going back, to the time he was on the island and how he used to dream about 15 being in Canada, of starting an entirely new life. He remembered those dreams clearly now; remembered too thinking of marrying some sweet island-woman with whom he’d share his life, of having children and later buying a house. Maybe someday he’d even own 20 a cottage on the edge of the city. He wasn’t too sure where one built a cottage, but there had to be a cottage. He’d then be in the middle class; life would be different from the hand-to-mouth existence he was used to. 25 His heels pressed into the asphalt, walking on. And slowly he...
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...theory today A Us e r - F r i e n d l y G u i d e S E C O N D E D I T I O N L O I S T Y S O N New York London Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016 Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN © 2006 by Lois Tyson Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business Printed in the United States of America on acid‑free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number‑10: 0‑415‑97410‑0 (Softcover) 0‑415‑97409‑7 (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number‑13: 978‑0‑415‑97410‑3 (Softcover) 978‑0‑415‑97409‑7 (Hardcover) No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging‑in‑Publication Data Tyson, Lois, 1950‑ Critical theory today : a user‑friendly guide / Lois Tyson.‑‑ 2nd ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0‑415‑97409‑7 (hb) ‑‑ ISBN 0‑415‑97410‑0 (pb) 1. Criticism. I. Title. PN81.T97 2006 801’...
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...6 Build Your Vocabulary ■ ■ ■ ■ The SAT High-Frequency Word List The SAT Hot Prospects Word List The 3,500 Basic Word List Basic Word Parts be facing on the test. First, look over the words on our SAT High-Frequency Word List, which you’ll find on the following pages. Each of these words has appeared (as answer choices or as question words) from eight to forty times on SATs published in the past two decades. Next, look over the words on our Hot Prospects List, which appears immediately after the High-Frequency List. Though these words don’t appear as often as the high-frequency words do, when they do appear, the odds are that they’re key words in questions. As such, they deserve your special attention. Now you’re ready to master the words on the High-Frequency and Hot Prospects Word Lists. First, check off those words you think you know. Then, look up all the words and their definitions in our 3,500 Basic Word List. Pay particular attention to the words you thought you knew. See whether any of them are defined in an unexpected way. If they are, make a special note of them. As you know from the preceding chapters, SAT often stumps students with questions based on unfamiliar meanings of familiar-looking words. Use the flash cards in the back of this book and create others for the words you want to master. Work up memory tricks to help yourself remember them. Try using them on your parents and friends. Not only will going over these high-frequency words reassure you that you...
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