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Essay #1: Fiction Analysis Question # 1: Love and Acceptance
Tillie Olsen's I Stand Here Ironing, and Alice Walker's Everyday Use, both
address the issue of a mother's guilt over how her children turn out. Both
mothers blamed themselves for their daughter's problems. While I Stand
Here Ironing is obviously about the mousy daughter, in Everyday Use this is
camouflaged by the fact most of the action and dialog involves the mother
and older sister Dee. Neither does the mother in Everyday Use say outright
that she feels guilty, but we catch a glimpse of it when Dee is trying very
hard to claim the handmade quilts. The mother says she did something she
had never done before, "hugged Maggie to me," then took the quilts from Dee
and gave them to Maggie. In I Stand Here Ironing the mother tells us she
feels guilty for the way her daughter Emily is, for the things she (the
mother) did and did not do. The mother's neighbor even tells her she
should "smile at Emily more when you look at her." Again towards the end
of the story Emily's mother admits "my wisdom came too late." The mothers
unknowingly gave Emily and Maggie second best.
Both mothers compare their two daughters to each other. In Everyday Use
the mother tells us that "Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a
fuller figure." She Fahning -2-speaks of the fire that burned and scarred
Maggie. She tells us how Maggie is not bright, how she shuffles when she
walks. Comparing her with Dee whose feet vwere always neat-looking, as if
God himself had shaped them." We also learn of Dee's "style" and the way
she awes the other girls at school with it.
The mother in I Stand Here Ironing speaks of Susan, "quick and articulate
and assured, everything in appearance and manner Emily was not." Emily
"thin and dark and foreign-looking at a time when every little girl was
supposed to look or thought she should look a chubby blonde replica of
Shirley Temple." Like Dee, Emily had a physical limitation also. Hers was
asthma.
Both Emily and Maggie show resentment towards their sisters. The sisters
who God rewarded with good looks and poise. Emily's mother points out the
"poisonous feeling" between the sisters, feelings she contributed to by her
inability to balance the "hurts and needs" of the two. In Everyday Use we
see Maggie "eying her sister with a mixture of envy and awe. She thinks
her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that "no" is a
word the world would never say to her." Maggie's mother seems to have
reinforced this by being unable to say no to Dee also. This is what makes
the point in the story when she finally does say no (regarding the quilts)
such an important moment in Maggie's life.
The attitude of the mothers towards the polished daughters borders on
contempt. I believe this is more evident in Everyday Use, demonstrated by
the dream of the TV show. Also the description of Dee reading to them,
"burned us with a lot of knowledge we Fahning -3-didn't necessarily need to
know," and again when she shoved "us away...like dimwits." It's also
pointed out that Dee and Susan are self-centered and selfish while Maggie
and Emily are caring and giving.
I think in the end both of the mothers realize their daughters are okay the
way they are. They come to accept their daughters limitations and cherish
their quiet gifts. Not everyone can be polished and successful in worldly
ways. Maybe that's why Maggie was smiling in the end, her mother finally
accepted her as is.
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