Jamie Vollet Jayla Howell Claire Heuckeroth “I Stand Here Ironing” Tillie Olsen

 Although the mother physically cared for her daughter, she was unable to care for her emotionally, causing a sense of guilt as the daughter struggled with the consequences.

 Diction  Fragments  Contrast  Irony  Tone  Metaphor

 Line 37: “She would lie on the floor in her blue overalls patting the surface so hard in ecstasy her hands and feet would blur.”  Line 18: “She was a beautiful baby.”  Line 27: “I nursed her” & Line 50 “when she saw me she would break into a clogged weeping that could not be comforted, a weeping I can hear yet.”  Shift from “She was a miracle to me” (Line 39) to “I had to leave her” (Line 40).  Fragments show mother’s lack of complexity. Mother is physically present, but emotionally not developed.

 Line 61: “She had said it before. She believes it.”  Line 79: “There were years she did not want me to touch her.” Irony

 Line 45 -“I was nineteen”  Line 73 - “She was a child of anxious, not proud, love.”  Line 83 -“She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear.”

 Line 45: “I was nineteen. It was the pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression.”  Line 10: “She had lived for nineteen years.”  Line 7: “’Who needs help.’ Even if I came, what good would it do?”

 Line 35: “She was a beautiful…” shows happiness, then shifts to Line 41: “I had to leave her…” which is cold, mad, regretful, pitiful.  Lines “I got out off the street car, running up the stairs…” Helplessness  Line 61-64: “but because I have been dredging the past, and all that compounds a human being is so heavy and meaningful in me, I cannot endure it tonight.” Tiredness  All of these tone shifts require emotion. This shows that while mother is “detached” emotionally, she ultimately can’t escape emotion.

 Line 1- “I stand here ironing”  Line 88 -“Only help her to know– that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron.”

 Line 84 - “Let her be. So all that is in her will not bloom.”

 Line 25: “But the seeing eyes were few or nonexistent. Including mine.”  Line 75: “I was a young mother, a distracted mother.”  Line 80: “My wisdom came too late.”

 Many politicians show emotion and tell relatable and heartfelt stories to connect and win over their audience.  Because of their emotion, they succeed.  Gabrielle Giffords