New Historicism and "I Stand Here Ironing" Tillie Olsen's short story "I Stand Here Ironing" seems to be a by-product of an oppressed group, single and hardworking. class mother. Since many elements also contain feminist influences, it would make sense to take a feminist or post-feminist approach to critically analyzing our history. However, because of Tillie Olsen's fascinating journey, a neo-historicist approach to Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" would take a considerably deeper look into her life. With this approach we can identify key connections between the author and the text. Which can help us better understand the author. To do this, there are a few things to consider about our author. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay starting with his childhood, race, gender and status. From here we can look at the time period and demographics of the author. This will give us an insight into his political, economic and intellectual education. Next, we see how people reasoned during the author's lifetime, and the patterns and limitations involved in the search for meaning. With all this information, we can decipher the autobiographical components of the story to make sense of it. One of the first things a new historicist would look at is the author's biography. Tillie Olsen is a white mother living in America. She had been married twice and had been a single mother for some time. Her first husband left her shortly after the birth of her first child, making life extremely difficult to balance work and raising a child. This is very relevant and almost identical to the Mother in our story; who is a single teenage mother who faces the challenge of raising her child alone. This is the first autobiographical element, since the journey of our author corresponds to that of our main character, we can safely say that these experiences lived by the mother in "I Stand Here Ironing" are linked not only to those of our author but also to other women in America. in the 20th century. Continuing our author's life, we can examine information regarding our author's political, economic, and intellectual background to determine how our story relates to the author. Olsen is working class, which could be due to her lack of education, her affiliation with the Communist Party, or the fact that she is a descendant of Russian immigrants. His parents came to America seeking political refuge, taking low-wage blue-collar jobs because that was all they were qualified for. Olsen had to drop out of high school to help his family through the Great Depression. Thus limiting her to low-income work and stereotypical housewife tasks. Although she was uneducated and busy being a mother, Olsen was still very political and striving to change the world. The mother in “I Stand Here Ironing” is also quite similar to our author in this sense. She, too, is an uneducated, working-class single mother who struggles to balance work and raising her children on her own. She looks back on the decisions she's made in her life and wonders what she could have done differently to avoid them. The mother in our story and Olsen were abandoned by their husbands when their child was very young. Working class life is hard enough, but as a single mother it's almost impossible. The main character returns to a momentof emotion that really shows how difficult times were: “They persuaded me at the clinic to send her [my eldest daughter] to a convalescent home in the countryside where “she can have the kind of food and care that you can't manage for her, and you'll be free to focus on the new baby. » In this quote, you can almost feel a tear falling as you read. Olsen uses this real emotion she felt in the same situation to help tell the story. By making these connections with the autobiographical elements of our story, we can see that the two share the same problems, and it seems increasingly true that Olsen is alluding to his own life, which resembles that of so many others women of the time. The final step in historical criticism is to investigate how people reasoned throughout our history. the author's life; as well as the patterns and limitations involved in understanding. Olsen belongs to a critical period in the American timeline. Much of his life was spent during war, depression, and the equality movements of the 20th century. It was a landmark time for America, as many changes were occurring in society's daily life. Two world wars forced the United States to change in order to win. The Great Depression followed nearly a decade after World War I. When unemployment soared, a large portion of the American population found itself in poverty. However, the end of the recession would lead to World War II; and more and more women took jobs to contribute to the war effort. Because men were at war, women still had to raise their children while holding down full-time jobs. The mother in “I Stand Here Ironing” reflects on life during the war years: “There was so little time left at night after the children went to bed. She struggled with the books, always eating (it was in these years that she developed her enormous appetite which is legendary in our family) and I would iron, or prepare food for the next day, or write a V- Mail to Bill, or look after the baby…” Tillie Olsen was one of those women, as she worked in a factory in the 1940s. This was around the time when her life was filled with work and raising children, which forced him to suspend his writing. She found work as a secretary in the 1950s until her youngest daughter started school. That’s finally when she was able to start writing again. This was an influential period for Olsen, as these experiences changed who she was and what she stood for, effectively changing how she wrote and what she wrote about. Her days, just like many other American women; as a working-class mother, she showed him the inequalities women fought against every day. This inspired her to join the feminist movement that was sweeping the country. This feminist influence is apparent in her work; as it accurately depicts the challenges women faced during this time. Fighting against the American patriarchy that is still visible today, Olsen uses his story, “I Stand Here Ironing” as motivation for those who feel that they too have felt the same challenges as our main character. Olsen alludes to many of the symptoms of inequality that our main character must address. the main character is faced with everyday life. Considering that the entire story takes place in a working-class home where our main character constantly passes through, Olsen takes the reader into the real-life mind of a mother.