Historical /Biographical Analysis of I Stand Here Ironing

Historical Biographical criticism is looking at a piece of literature through the lens of the culture at the time it was written as well as the author’s upbringing. It can also be used to retroactively study a period based on the literature that was produced. “I Stand Here Ironing” was written by Tillie Olsen. She was the child of Jewish immigrants, worked menial jobs most of her young life and was an ardent socialist. She was also a driven feminist, partly due to her own experiences. After her first child was born she was forced to abandon her burgeoning writing career for 20 years due to time constraints. She did research and found this was a common trait among female writers which caused many to go unpublished. She found that almost all successful female 20th-century writers either had no kids or hired people to take care of their kids. When one reads I Stand Here Ironing it is almost as if this character of Emily’s mother is a manifestation of her struggles as the resemblance is uncanny. Both lived through the Great Depression and struggled to balance family life as well as work life, and as a result, both lived lives of great regret. 

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In reading this piece I am reminded very heavily of the Great Depression photograph “Migrant Mother”. It is a black and white photo taken in 1936 that shows a mother and her two children, they are all very dirty but that is not what the picture is about. You can’t see the faces of the children but you can see the mother's face, one of great pain and focus. That resonates heavily with the plot of this story which speaks of a mother who didn’t smile at her kid, likely because she was under immense pain and focus. The father is not pictured in the photo just like the father is not present in the story because he was tired of “sharing want with them”. As a man of the times it was tough because your value was tied to that of a breadwinner, so to take that away led to a lot of men feeling powerless and lead to the destruction of many families. 

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I Stand Here Ironing was published in 1961 by Tillie Olsen. She grew up very poor and dropped out of school at the age of 15 when she started working as a waitress and domestic worker. She started to write towards the end of the Great Depression but found herself constantly stuck with the decision of whether to fulfill her duty as a mother or her duty as a writer, something in her research she found was extremely common for many female authors. Her life was also devoted to being an activist of socialist causes, partly due to the influence of her socialist parents, as well as the atrocities she had seen poorer people suffer. Upon hearing her biography and reading “I Stand Here Ironing” it is not hard to find similarities between Olsen and the narrator. Both had to deal with absentee partners, both had to deal with raising children among tough economic times but most importantly both had grave regrets concerning balancing their work and personal lives. The mother of the story remarked negatively to the notion she was the “secret key to Emily” saying “I will become engulfed with all I did or did not do, with what should have been and what cannot be helped.'' Tillie Olsen was quoted saying “Well, I’m going to be one of those unhappy people who die with the sense of what never got written, or never got finished”. Olsen may not have gotten the ability to write all that her mind had to share, but she will be constantly remembered for all that she was able to.