PREPARED BY: SITI NAJWA BINTI BAHARIM SITI SYAHRUN NURUL AIN BINTI MISAN

~ AUTHOR ~
Tillie

Lerner Olsen (January 14, 1912 January 1, 2007) An American writer associated with the political turmoil of the 1930s and the first generation of American feminists Olsen was born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Wahoo, Nebraska and moved to Omaha while a young child. Over the years Olsen worked as a waitress, domestic worker, and meat trimmer. In the 1930s she joined the American Communist party. She later moved to San Francisco, California, where in 1936 she met and lived with Jack Olsen, who was an organizer and a longshoreman. She married Jack in 1944, on the eve of his departure for service in World War II . "I Stand Here Ironing" is the first and shortest story in the collection, about a woman who is grieving about her daughter's life and about the circumstances that shaped her own mothering.

~ SUMMARY ~
In this story the main character is a mother who is thinking about her eldest girl who named Emily. The mother who is from middle class left to work and take care of her children. Because of Emilys father had died when she was one she had to work and give her a less care and now shes sorrow about it. There were so many reasons that she couldnt care about her such as she was only nineteen when she was born and her poverty. Eventually she had forced to leave her with her fathers family until she reaches 2 years. Then the mother left her at nursery school. After all the mother gave a birth and Emily had a sister named Susan. Like this, Emily couldnt catch her attention at all and the mother thinking all about her past when she is ironing the girls dress. Because of carelessness Emily never liked school, liked pets. Now the mother knows how her girl is valuable and how she loves her.

~ SETTING ~
The story moves through a fairly long timeframe it is set in the early 1950s, it looks back to the 1930s (the time of the Great Depression), and the 1940s (the time of World War 2). The story is set in the working class home of the narrator, who comments that when her first child was born, they "were poor and could not afford for her the soil of easy growth."

~ CHARACTER & CHARACTER TRAITS ~

1) Emily A shy nineteen-year old girl. She is the oldest of five children. Emily had a very difficult childhood, but has recently developed a talent for comedic acting. She is cynical about life, and the world, despite her youth. She believes the atomic bomb will soon destroy everything; so there is no point in caring about anything. 2) Emily's mother A mother who is filled with regrets and worries about her daughter. She worked hard to support her family and take care of them, but in retrospect she realizes there are many things she would have done differently if she could.

3) Emily's father deserted the family so as not to "share poverty with them" less than one year after Emily's birth. 4) 5) Emily's stepfather called away to fight in WWII. Susan the second child. golden and curly haired, chubby, quick, articulate and sure. By the time Susan was born, her mother had remarried and gained enough experience to show more affection than when Emily was born.

~ PLOT ~
Point of view:

The story is told from a mother's first person point of view.

The narrator, a now remarried mother of several children, remembers the way she parented her first child, Emily. Her thoughts, and the story, are about what she would have done differently while parenting Emily if she had been more experienced and had better options. It is one of Olsen's most anthologized works.

INITIAL SITUATION While ironing, a mother thinks about her daughter.. A counsellor or teacher asks the narrator for some insights into her daughter. This question prompts the narrator to reflect on her daughter's life. CONFLICT The mother struggles to make ends meet when her daughter is born. The narrator thinks back to the circumstances of Emily's birth. The narrator was nineteen at the time, and the father had left them. The narrator sought work while leaving Emily in the hands of not-so-caring babysitters. COMPLICATION The narrator remarries, but Emily still has trouble fitting in. The narrator's remarriage brings more stability (and more children) into their lives, but Emily continues to be plagued with health problems and has trouble keeping up in school. CLIMAX As a teenager, Emily reveals a talent for comedy. On a whim, Emily puts on a comedy act for her high school talent show, and the audience loves it. All of a sudden, it seems as if Emily is getting all the attention she had never received as a child.

SUSPENSE Emily interrupts the narrator while she is thinking. At this point, the narrator's reflections are interrupted by Emily herself, who has returned home. Emily's flippant attitude toward her education contrasts with the promise she displays as a performer. DENOUEMENT Emily goes to bed, while the narrator continues to iron. The narrator continues her ironing, as well as her reflections about her daughter. The fact that there seems to be no progress in the narrator's thoughts and actions suggests that she hasn't come to any conclusions about her daughter's life.

CONCLUSION The narrator asks the imaginary person she's having a conversation with to help Emily. This ending is pretty inconclusive: the narrator still hasn't resolved her conflicting feelings about Emily. She isn't sure if Emily will ever fulfill her promise, or if she will let her talent go to waste. She ends her imaginary conversation with Emily's teacher by asking the teacher to help Emily realize her potential.

~ THEMES ~
1) WOMEN AND FEMININITY "I Stand Here Ironing" looks at the themes of women and femininity through the lens of a mother-daughter relationship. Struggling to make ends meet during the Great Depression, the narrator works long hours and is unable to care for her daughter. The narrator is a single, working mother at a time when a more traditional, middle-class, stay-at-home mom was the norm in mainstream American society. Olsen's story takes us inside the mind of the narrator as she juggles the role of mother and breadwinner. The story also gives us a sense of the challenges faced by her daughter, who comes of age in a society that values a Shirley Temple model of girlhood and adolescent femininity. Although the mother-daughter relationship in Olsen's story doesn't fit the mainstream stereotype, it reveals a strong bond; their love for each other is palpable as they share their struggles.

2) POVERTY Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" is an intimate look at life from the perspective of the working class during the Great Depression. It begins in a time before the great work projects and social relief efforts of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration, when it was difficult for someone with no education to find work let alone a woman. Families such as the narrator's fall apart under the strain of immense poverty. Moving frequently as their parents seek work, the children attend crowded schools with uninspiring teachers. Charitable institutions such as clinics and hospitals are woefully inadequate. Is the American Dream, the dream of prosperity and material security, out of reach for the working class? The story suggests that perhaps the American Dream needs to be re-imagined to open more opportunities to people regardless of gender or class.

3) POWER Olsen's story reveals a deeply skeptical attitude toward those who hold positions of power, whether they be the wealthy, the government, or institutions such as public hospitals and schools. Those in power are blind to the needs of the working class. Charity, it seems, is only an excuse not to give the working class real opportunities (such as a livable wage) to improve their own lives. The skepticism is also informed by a post-World War II perspective that has witnessed the destructive power of the atomic bomb: political power is associated with death. The story attempts to make visible the real lives of the working class, from their own perspective.

~ LITERARY DEVICES ~
SYMBOLS
The Iron The iron represents the chores and responsibilities that prevented the narrator from engaging with Emilys life more profoundly. As the storys title suggests, the narrator is constantly embroiled in the duties she must perform to effectively care for her family. This is ironic because it is these duties that drew her away from Emily and lessened the quality of her care. The repetitive motion of the iron moving back and forth across the surface of the ironing board mimics the narrators thought processes as she moves back and forth over her life as a mother, attempting to identify the source of Emilys current difficulties. The distance the narrator feels from Emily is embodied in this simple act of ironing. Although Emilys welfare is the central concern of the story, the narrator is more actively engaged in unwrinkling her daughters dress than in the life of the young woman who will wear it. The narrators final wish is that Emily will have a strong sense of self-worth and believe that she is more than the dress that is helpless before the iron. This comment suggests that the narrator hopes Emily will be able to transcend the narrators mistakes, rather than succumb to the circumstances of her birth.

Theory of Literary Criticism

Sosial Criticism (Marxism)
A sociological approach to literature that viewed works of literature or art as the products of historical forces that can be analyzed by looking at the material condition in which they were formed.

Material Circumstance
The economic condition underlying the society. To understand social events, one must have a grasp of the material circumstances and the historical situation in which they occur. Status of economic: World of the depression. I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre WPA world

of depression. I would start running as soon as I got off the streetcar, running up the stairs, the place smelling sour and awake or sleep to startle awake, when she saw me she would break into a clogged weeping that could not be comforted, a weeping I can hear yet.

 Result of the economic status force the mother to leave her daughter and struggle to find the work since her husband left her. His abandonment created the economic situation in Emilys life which led her mother to send her away to so many different care takers.

I had to leave her daytimes with the woman downstairs to whom she was no miracle at all, for I worked or looked for work and for Emilys father, who could no longer endure (he wrote in his goodbye note) sharing want with us. I was terrible, growing years. War years. I do not remember them well. I was working, there were four smaller ones now, there was not time for her

 Working class women like Emilys mother walk an exceptionally thin line when attempting to conform to societal norms of good motherhood while earning enough money to support her children. It took a long time to raise the money for her fare back. Then she got chicken pox and I had to wait longer

 The writer emphasize the poor health care and lack of attention that felt by Emily make the mother regret it so much.

I used to try to hold and love her after she come back, but her body would stay stiff, and after a while shes push away. She ate little. Food sickened her, and I think much of life too Mostly Emily had asthma, and her breathing, harsh and labored, would fill the house with a curiously tranquil sound

 The writer also emphasize on poor education that had been provided by the mother due to the economic status that time . She is not working and had a new baby.

School was a worry to her. She was not glib or quick in a world where glibness and quickness were easily confused with ability to learn. To her overworked and exasperated teachers she was an over-conscientious slow learner who kept trying to catch up and was absent entirely to often I let her be absent, though sometimes the illness was imaginary. How different from my now stricness about attendance with the others. I wasnt working. We had a new baby, I was home anyhow. Sometimes, after Susan grew old enough. I would keep her home from school, too, to have them all together.

 Rich become richer and poor become poorer.

I see pictures on the society page of sleek young women planning affairs to raise money for it, or dancing at the affairs, or decorating Easter Eggs or filling Christmas stockings for the children.