The first sentence in “i stand here ironing” sets the tone and establishes the mood of the entire story: “i stand here ironing, and what you asked me moves tormented back and forth with the iron.” prompted by the counselor’s concern for her daughter’s future development, the mother responds with a tone of resignation, even despair, as she tries to explain to her visitor the nature of her circumscribed life and the nature of her daughter’s desperate attempts to find her own identity within a self-limiting environment. like the iron to which she refers, her daughter’s life has moved in a cycle of progression and retrogression, between moments of joy and satisfaction and moments of isolation and despair. ironing is also a perfect metaphor for the limited roles imposed upon women—of wife, homemaker, and mother—and all that is lost to women because of those narrow roles.

the mother tells a story of self-denial, deprivation, and loss. emily, the subject of the counselor’s inquiry, is the oldest of five children. the mother recalls a special memory of emily as a baby—beautiful, joyous, full of life. “she was a miracle to me.” after eight months of bliss, however, her husband leaves them suddenly, and she is forced to find work to rear her child. she is even compelled to leave the child with her former husband’s family for a year. the mother remarries and soon is pregnant with her second child. for a time, she has to send emily to a convalescent home because of her ill health. the effect of these separations on emily is devastating: she becomes a remote, isolated girl who has few friends and does poorly in school. the mother concludes, “i was working, there were four smaller ones now, there was not time for her.”

somehow emily survives these deprivations and develops a talent for mimicry. although her mother is encouraged to emily refine that gift, she contends, “but without money or knowing how, what does one do? we have left it all to her, and the fight has as often eddied inside, clogged and clotted, as been used and growing.”

one of the central themes in the story is that emily’s individuality and uniqueness of character are realized through her mother’s reminiscences. the mother does not view emily with the same limited perspective that society applied to her as a young woman. in fact, one of the ironies of the story is that emily, who is nineteen, was born when her mother was nineteen. it is clear that the mother’s reminiscences of emily’s childhood are meant as a comparison between constraints placed upon the mother’s life when she was nineteen and the possibilities open to her daughter’s life at the same age. in effect, emily has choices, whereas her mother had none.

Memories of a memory have you ever witnessed something amazing, shocking or surprising and found when describing the event that your story seems to change the more you tell it? have you ever experienced a time when you couldn't really describe something you saw in a way that others could understand? if so, you may understand why some experts think eyewitness testimony is unreliable as evidence in scientific inquiries and trials. new insights into human memory suggest human memories are really a mixture of many non-factual things. first, memory is vague. imagine your room at home or a classroom you see every day. most likely, you could describe the room very generally. you could name the color of the walls, the floors, the decorations. but the image you describe will never be as specific or detailed as if you were looking at the actual room. memory tends to save a blurry image of what we have seen rather than specific details. so when a witness tries to identify someone, her brain may recall that the person was tall, but not be able to say how tall when faced with several tall people. there are lots of different kinds of "tall." second, memory uses general knowledge to fill in gaps. our brains reconstruct events and scenes when we remember something. to do this, our brains use other memories and other stories when there are gaps. for example, one day at a library you go to quite frequently, you witness an argument between a library patron and one of the librarians. later, when telling a friend about the event, your brain may remember a familiar librarian behind the desk rather than the actual participant simply because it is recreating a familiar scene. in effect, your brain is combining memories to you tell the story. third, your memory changes over time. it also changes the more you retell the story. documented cases have shown eyewitnesses adding detail to testimony that could not have been known at the time of the event. research has also shown that the more a witness's account is told, the less accurate it is. you may have noticed this yourself. the next time you are retelling a story, notice what you add, or what your brain wants to add, to the account. you may also notice that you drop certain details from previous tellings of the story. with individual memories all jumbled up with each other, it is hard to believe we ever know anything to be true. did you really break your mother's favorite vase when you were three? was that really your father throwing rocks into the river with you when you were seven? the human brain may be quite remarkable indeed. when it comes to memory, however, we may want to start carrying video cameras if we want to record the true picture. part a and part b below contain one fill-in-the-blank to be used for all three question responses. your complete response must be in the format a, b, c including the letter choice, commas, and a space after the commas. part a: which of the following best explains why memories from childhood are unreliable? fill in blank 1 using a, b, or c. our brains add details and general knowledge to childhood memories. our brains are not as reliable as video cameras are. our brains create new stories to make the past more interesting. part b select one quotation from the text that supports your answer to part a. add your selection to blank 1 using e, f, or g. but the image you describe will never be as specific or detailed as if you were looking at the actual room. when a witness tries to identify someone, her brain may recall that the person was tall, but not be able to say how tall. to do this, our brains use other memories and other stories when there are gaps. select one quotation from the text that supports your answer to part a. add your selection to blank 1 using h, i, or j. documented cases have shown eyewitnesses adding detail to testimony that could not have been known at the time of the event. with individual memories all jumbled up with each other, it is hard to believe we ever know anything to be true. when it comes to memory, however, we may want to start carrying video cameras if we want to record the true picture answer for blank 1:

Which traits are strongest in your persuasive essay: ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, or conventions?

He leaned his head against the wall; his eyes were shut, his hands clasped in each other, and his body seemed to be sustained in an upright position merely by the cellar-door against which he rested his left shoulder. the lethargy into which he was sunk seemed scarcely interrupted by my feeling his hand and his forehead. his throbbing temples and burning skin indicated a fever . . there was only one circumstance that hindered me from forming an immediate determination in what manner this person should be treated. my family consisted of my wife and a young child. our servant-maid had been seized, three days before, by the reigning malady, and, at her own request, had been conveyed to the hospital. we ourselves enjoyed good health, and were hopeful of escaping with our lives. our measures for this end had been cautiously taken and carefully adhered to. they did not consist in avoiding the receptacles of infection, for my office required me to go daily into the midst of them; nor in filling the house with the exhalations of gunpowder, vinegar, or tar. they consisted in cleanliness, reasonable exercise, and wholesome diet. who is the story’s first-person narrator