I Stand Here Ironing

The setting of this story is modern day society in an urban town. The narrator is the mother. In the story she talks to her daughter, but also the text reflects the thoughts in her head. The situation that takes place in the story is of a young woman that gets pregnant and has to work while her daughter is still young. When the narrator says, “Even if I came, what good would it do?” I think that this means that her daughter is already her own person who will not listen to much of her mother’s advice. Throughout the story, her daughter is described as a person that “keeps to herself” and is “a child of her age, of depression, of war, of fear”. She is not easily influenced or swayed by the advice of her mother. Also when Emily says, “Whistler painted his mother in a rocker. I’d have to paint mine standing over an ironing board,” I think that this quote means that her mother has always been working. She has never had the privilege to quit work and relax, she spends all of her time either working or taking care of her children.