Character Analysis: I Stand Here Ironing

The past is filled with moments we remember some of joy and others of longing to have done something different thinking things would be better than they are now. In “I Stand Here Ironing” Olsen shows how parents could come to regret the decisions they make as they raise their children through the narrator. The importance of displaying this regret to the reader is to enhance the sympathy towards the narrator who otherwise might be seen as a terrible mom at least to her first daughter. Olsen’s narrator is the mother of five children(510) the first being Emily who the narrator regrets many of the choices she made raising which caused her social and emotional connection with Emily to break down and longs to establish the same bond with Emily …show more content…
The narrator shows her favoritism by her descriptions of Emily saying that “The first and only one of five that was beautiful at birth”. Emily’s mother wants to know her Emily and to touch her. The Olsen’s narrator says that when Emily was younger after Susan was born if Emily called to her at night that she would not sit with her except on two occasions and that “Now that it is too late (as if she would let me hold her and comfort her like I do the others) I get up and go to her at once at her moan or restless stirring” (512). Now that the narrator is older and for so long was denied the relationship she wanted with her first born daughter when she finally can be there for her Emily no longer needs her in the same ways. In “I Stand Here Ironing” Olsen shows how parents could come to regret the decisions they make as they raise their children to allow the narrator to gain sympathy from the readers. Most readers can relate to longing for something after losing it especially when it comes to a close relationship with someone you love. Here Olsen uses a common feeling to help readers understand the