Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Robert J. Kloss

SOURCE: "Balancing the Hurts and the Needs: Olsen's 'I Stand Here Here Ironing,'" in Journal of Evolutionary Psychology, Vol. 15, Nos. 1-2, March, 1994, pp. 78-86.

In the following essay, Kloss examines the daughter's emotional deprivation in "I Stand Here Ironing."

Few modern short stories move readers to feel as much compassion toward the inherent vulnerability of the human child as does Tillie Olson's "I Stand Here Ironing." In the mother's wrenching narration of simple fact in response to a school psychologist's inquiry about her troubled nineteen-year-old daughter, she reveals all her anguish, past and present. At the same time, she tries not to "… become engulfed with all I did not do, with what should have been and what cannot be helped."

Indeed, this tale does raise significant questions about what can and cannot be helped in the upbringing of a child, and discussions of the story usually center...
(read more)