There is a good reason for [Tillie Olsen's] low production. For more than forty years she has been a wife and mother, a family wage-earner at dull and time-sapping menial jobs. She has been, like multitudes of other talents, frustratingly "silent"—silent because, most of all, of the necessities of earning a living and keeping a family together.
Silences, her third book, tells us all this—tells us why, and how arduous and obstructed her life, a woman's life, has been. She has not been alone. Her abundant quotations from others who have endured silently, both men and women, may seem abundant only to those unacquainted with or indifferent to society's waste of individual talents.
This is a free excerpt of 112 words. There are 235 words (approx.
1 page at 300 words per page) in the full critical essay.
Read the rest of this Criticism with our Olsen, Tillie 1913–: Critical Essay by Nolan Miller Access Pass.
