She reminds readers that, because they had to work and serve as the "essential angels" of their household, some of William Shakespeare's sisters failed to write. As she explains in
Silences (1978), Olsen's own responsibilities came close to thwarting her artistic pursuits: "As for myself, who did not publish a book until I was fifty, who raised children without household help . . . who worked outside the house on everyday jobs as well. . . who could not kill the essential angel (there was no one else to do her work) ... [I was] as distant from the world of literature most of my life as literature is distant (in content too) from my world." There is a mirroring, reciprocal relationship between the facts of Olsen's life and the major concerns of her work. Her fiction bridges the distance between her own world and the world of literature. Her personal remarks in a talk at Radcliffe in 1963 (later included in
Silences) describe instances when words die, the tragedy of a writer who is often silenced:
The habits of a lifetime when everything else had to come before writing are not easily broken, even when circumstances now often make it possible for writing to be first; habits of years-response to others, distractibility, responsibility for daily matters—stay with you, mark you, become you.
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