Psychoanaltic Reading of "I Stand Here Ironing"
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 01/05/2015 05:29 AM
- Pages: 3
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Psychoanalysis suggests that our unconscious, with help of some defense mechanisms, tries to hide or change our destructive behavior, which have a significant role in our identities. Defense Mechanisms allow people to disconnect with reality, and allow "the content of our unconscious stays in our unconscious", so we can avoid facing this parts of our personalities.
Denial is a type of defense in which you believe that the problem does not exist or the unpleasant incident never happened (Tyson, 15). Denial appears in this story in characters of mother and Emily. It mostly appears in the mother, the fact that she does not want to see and accept her role in her daughter's low self-esteem, her problems in school, and her weakness and so on. She blames everyone and everything except herself. She blames society, her former husband and his family, the people whom took care of the child when she was working, the nurses in convalescent home for not letting Emily keep her letters, and so on. However she never considers her flaw as a mother in her daughter's fundamental problems, she never explains why the old man has advised her to smile at her daughter, never accepts the effect of her behavior on child. She left her alone for hours when she was a little kid, or the fact that she allowed her stay at home when she feigned sickness. She does not help her daughter to recognize and solve her shortcomings, but instead repress them. She denies the problem, like when Emily has nightmares and calls for her, she tells her that “you’re all right, darling, go to sleep, it’s just a dream…now go to sleep Emily, there’s nothing to hurt you.” (Olsen, 3)
The other example includes Emily herself, she does not desire to believe that the problems exist; she does not accept that she is sick, or have diff, she does not even tell her mother that she is not happy in day care, instead she lies about sickness and holydays and brings excuses, as a child she always says that she is fine, after her...
Denial is a type of defense in which you believe that the problem does not exist or the unpleasant incident never happened (Tyson, 15). Denial appears in this story in characters of mother and Emily. It mostly appears in the mother, the fact that she does not want to see and accept her role in her daughter's low self-esteem, her problems in school, and her weakness and so on. She blames everyone and everything except herself. She blames society, her former husband and his family, the people whom took care of the child when she was working, the nurses in convalescent home for not letting Emily keep her letters, and so on. However she never considers her flaw as a mother in her daughter's fundamental problems, she never explains why the old man has advised her to smile at her daughter, never accepts the effect of her behavior on child. She left her alone for hours when she was a little kid, or the fact that she allowed her stay at home when she feigned sickness. She does not help her daughter to recognize and solve her shortcomings, but instead repress them. She denies the problem, like when Emily has nightmares and calls for her, she tells her that “you’re all right, darling, go to sleep, it’s just a dream…now go to sleep Emily, there’s nothing to hurt you.” (Olsen, 3)
The other example includes Emily herself, she does not desire to believe that the problems exist; she does not accept that she is sick, or have diff, she does not even tell her mother that she is not happy in day care, instead she lies about sickness and holydays and brings excuses, as a child she always says that she is fine, after her...