I Stand Here Ironing is set in a historical context; the story is intertwined with references to the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. The story is told in the first person through Emily's mother. The logic of it being written as it was is governed by the narrator's train of thought. As an audience, we get to directly experience what the narrator is thinking, and we get a deeply personalized story. In this historical context, Olsen's intimate story is actually a way of speaking truth to power, of representing the life and struggle of an ordinary person. The purpose of the title is explained to us right at the beginning of the story. We learn that the narrator is a mother with a large family. Emily's mother is interrupted in her routine by a disturbing question from her daughter's teacher. The question "moves tormentedly back and forth with the iron" (Olsen, 1). The continuous movement of the iron conveys to the audience of the story a continuous flow of poverty and responsibility that distracts them from giving Emily all their attention and care. Iron is used as a symbol to represent the forces that shape people's lives. It shows that Emily can control her own life and that she is her own person and more than one iron can shape her. Through this story, we follow Emily, the narrator's daughter, from birth to late adolescence. Unfortunately we only have snippets of her life, from her mother's perspective, but this perspective allows the story to reveal how the circumstances of Emily's upbringing have a profound effect on her personal development. The story would be completely changed if written in any other form, such as third-person omniscient. For example, he could have given us a more detailed description... middle of the paper... or closer, the narrator's daughter, Emily, asks her mother if she will ever stop ironing. At this point in the story we know that this is a very challenging question. If “ironing” represents all material difficulties – poverty, single motherhood, illness, etc. – which have made the narrator a “distracted mother”, Emily's question is actually about whether her mother will ever pay attention to her. The story ends with a response to the teacher that sounds like a prayer. "Leave her alone." The narrator continues, “Just help her to know – help her to make sure that there is a cause for her to know – that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, defenseless before the iron” (Olsen, 56). Even if the mother is not yet sure that her daughter will escape her fate, "defenseless before the iron", she at least has the fervent hope of realizing the immense promise of her talent..