Symbolism In I Stand Here Ironing

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I stand here ironing was written by Tillie Lerner Olsen and published in 1961. Do you know why the mother stand here and iron? Do you know what happened during ironing? In the perspective of Emily’s mother, the author will tell a story which happened in the Great Depression and recorded upbringing of her firstborn daughter Emily, from a beautiful baby to a cynicism and crooked teen.
Emily was born in Great Depression and her father left before she was one year old because he couldn’t stand the poverty. Her mother worked whenever she found something to work being forced to leave her daughter with her grandparents. The place that Emily lived was not very clean and smelled soul. When she was old enough, she was sent to the kindergarten which means a horrific place that teachers treated children with bad attitude. Thus, Emily expected staying home and having her mom’s accompanying, however, her mother was working too hard to look after her at that period. After then, Emily had a high fever and didn’t get recovery. Following the doctor’s advice, she was sent to a
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For example, the convalescent home asked children not to be contaminated by parents. So Emily had to meet her mother while she stood on the balcony and her mother stood on ground. The Emily’s balcony shows the gap in emotion communication between Emily and her mother that they can only communicate face to face rather than hurt to hurt. Another bright spot is the writer use first-person-perspective to show the grow path of Emily, writing as her mother and reflecting the mistaken choice she had ever made. As we read the story we are drawn through a knowledge of the present reality and reconstruct the past. In other words, the mother was setting out to assess her own responsibility, her own failure. In the whole process, we could infer the inner heart rather than directly read it as usual

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