Comparison Paper on Everyday Use

Comparison between the two short stories named I Stand Here Ironing and Everyday Use

Tillie Olsen’s I Stand Here Ironing, and Alice Walker’s Everyday Use, addresses issues of compassion between daughters Emily and Maggie. Both show resentment toward their sister. Both mothers blamed themselves for their daughter’s issues and problems which affected their lives in negative ways. The dialogue in I Stand Here Ironing is about the mother telling her point of view to a social worker about her daughter’s struggles while ironing Emily’s dress. Everyday Use is a short story that talks about conflict between the mother, Ms. Johnson and Dee. They disagree about grandmother’s quilts. Dee wants to take the quilts from Maggie, but mother gives Maggie the quilts instead.

How does the mother in I Stand Here Ironing and Everyday Use addresses issues of comparing their daughter? In Everyday Use the mother compares the skin complexion of the daughters. The mother tells us that “Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure”. She explains Maggie is dark, and she shuffles when she walks. The mother talks about how different their feet appear. She tells us that Dee’s feet were always neat-looking. She stated God himself had shaped them?” The mother in I Stand Here Ironing talks of Susan as being, “quick and articulate. Susan had golden, curly hair, and was chubby. According to her mother, Emily was “thin, dark and foreign-looking at a time when everyone thought that she should have been a chubby blonde replica of Shirley Temple.”

Compare how Emily and Maggie show resentment toward their sisters. In I Stand Here Ironing, the mother points out the “poisonous feelings” between the sisters. In the two stories the mothers felt