The Effects Of Absence In Tillie Olsen's I Stand Here Ironing

The Affects of Absence

In “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, the narrator is absent for many important moments of her daughter Emily’s life. This absence causes many issues for the narrator in regards to knowing her daughter and to creating a bond with her. The narrator describes Emily’s growth throughout life in the story while also describing her own issues as a parent trying to provide for her family with relatively no help financially. There are many key times in the story where Emily is absent from the narrator’s life and an important moment happens. Emily misses these moments due to her absences that are decided by her mother. These absences have caused Emily great difficulty in finding herself as a person throughout life. By
The narrator loved her baby and complimented her saying “She was a beautiful baby”(Olsen 382) and “she was a miracle to me”(Olsen 382). However when Emily was only eight months old when the narrator “had to leave her daytimes with the woman downstairs to whom she was no miracle at all”(Olsen 382), this was just the first of many absences of the two in each others life. The narrator had to look for work so she would have money to be able to raise her baby girl. We also learn that at this time the narrator is only nineteen years old and Emily’s father had left them because he “could no longer endure”(Olsen 383). The narrator “would start running as soon as I got off the streetcar,” (Olsen 383) to get home and see Emily. It killed her to be away from her daughter especially at such a young age where a baby needs her mother the most. The narrator finally finds a job working nights so that she is able to spend the daytime with her
The narrator sums up all the hardship that Emily had to deal with in growing up and explains why she may not be able to view herself in the best way because of some of those hardships. “Her father left before she was a year old. I had …She is a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear.”(Olsen 389). The narrator however has hope in Emily and knows that she will blossom one day to see the good in herself and the potential she has in this world. The absences in Emily’s life cause her great difficulty to find her true self over her early years but the narrator hopes that in the future she will be able to.
Emily spent many years away from her family, which made it difficult for her to grow with her family. Every time she returned home she had to adjust to a new aspect of life as well as reconnect with the things that weren’t there when she left. Even with the narrators attempts to reconnect with her daughter things are never the same. The attempts came to late in Emily’s life and now all she can do is hope that Emily can recover for her future. This story really shows how absences in ones life during key moments can really take a toll and not only effect the present but also the