The Iron (Fist) of the Circumstance “I Stand Here Ironing”, by Tillie Olsen, is a story told by an unnamed mother who struggles to balance family and financial stability. The mother retells her experience raising Emily, the oldest daughter of the family, who faces both emotional and physical hardships such as depression, separation from her family, and illness.
Throughout the story, the mother is constantly ironing clothes, symbolising her maternal duties that ironically keep her from spending time with her family, along with being an analogy of the influence of the mother on Emily’s development. After sending Emily off to school, the mother contemplates young Emily’s desires and personality, “I think of our others in their three-, four-year-oldness — the explosions, tempers, the denunciations, the demands — and I feel suddenly ill. I put the iron down. What in me demanded that goodness in her?
And what was the cost, the cost to her of such goodness? ” (830) She feels unworthy of Emily’s quiet obedience that is shown even when it is clear that Emily dislikes school. The iron being placed down symbolises a break in the constant work that the mother puts into caring for the family when she considers what she’s done for Emily thus far. Emily’s mother is often absent from her family because of her job and all the maternal duties that she has to take care of, and the two were even separated when Emily stays in her grandparents’ home for an extended period.
Thus, Emily’s mother questions the strength of their relationship and how much she really deserves Emily’s consideration and good behaviour. The mother is concerned with Emily’s “goodness” and how the lack of demands may affect Emily’s welfare in her school environment. In addition to symbolising the maternal duties of Emily’s mother, the iron is also an analogy to Emily’s childhood. Her mother says, “Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom – but in how many does it? There is still enough left to live by.
Only help her to know – help make it so there is cause for her to know – that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron. ” (834) The iron is comparable to the influence of the mother on Emily’s life: forever trying to smooth out the deep wrinkles in the dress, in the way that the mother is trying her hardest to “smooth out” hardships in Emily’s life to let Emily enjoy a better life. Emily’s mother makes some hard decisions, such as sending Emily away to a different home, but she makes these decisions with the well-being on her daughter on mind.
On the flip side, the analogy can always be interpreted negatively: the iron smothers the cloth’s potential to be unique and three-dimensional, thereby turning it flat and not as vivacious. Emily’s childhood and the decisions the mother makes in regards to Emily’s upbringing have a similar effect of “flattening” Emily’s personality and mindset. The combination of a missing father figure, the absence of her mother, separation from her family, and feelings of living in the shadow of her sister all make Emily into a “child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear” (834).
The mother’s words tell the audience that she believes that, although Emily’s upbringing may not have been the best, Emily still turns out with some success such as developing her knack for comedy. All that Emily’s mother can do now is push Emily to strive for a better life that will reach beyond the pressure of her childhood. Although the iron symbolises and points out some negative attributes of the mother such as the mother’s absence or the disappointment of the mother in herself, Emily’s mother’s connection to the iron in no way means that she failed completely as a parent.
The mother works to financially support her family as an independent person, and although she has faults and could not always be around her family, the mother is only human. Even so, she always has her children’s best intentions in mind and still tries her hardest to support them. Her family does have rough circumstances, and even though it turns out to be a bit short of enough, Emily’s mother still braves these conflicts with everything she has in order to support her family. In that way, she is all you could ask a mother to be.
