In the short story, “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, there are many literary devices that are used to develop this short story. Theme is the most crucial literary aspect that is used in this story because it helps the reader understand what the story is trying to say. The literary aspect that has medium importance is tone, and the aspect with minimal importance was point of view.

In the short story, the author is trying to convey a very important theme to the reader through the overall story. This theme was that one should never give up and lose hope no matter how hard the times are because eventually, there will be a day that success is reached. Throughout the story, the mother talks about the hard times that she and her daughter faced. She described how her daughter was really a complainer, but she wanted success and she never achieved it till the very end when she almost gave up hope. However, because she did not, she was able to succeed with the talent that she had. The mother describes how when her daughter wrote to her, she said she would get a star if she wrote well, but there was never a star. By illustrating the life of Emily, the author is able to create this theme that helps the reader understand the meaning of the story.

The story had a very dark and harsh tone throughout. Because the mother and the daughter had such a poor and harsh life, the author uses a dark and sad tone to convey the feelings of the mother. The tone also helps the reader understand how hard the times were for the two. By using strong words to describe the situation and appealing to the emotion of the reader by describing helplessness of the characters’ situation, the author is able to create such a tone. Through the tone, the reader is able to get an in-depth view of the life of the mother and her daughter. Although a different tone might have worked, changing it would be unnecessary.

The author used a third-person point of view from the mother’s perspective for the short story. This point of view focused on the mother as the main character, but it was the daughter who was really the main object of the story. By explaining Emily through the point of view her mother, the author is able to describe Emily from the perspective of the person who knew her the most. However, this worked well because Emily would have been a biased narrator and we would have learned less about her if she were the one who told the story. Still, the point of view was not the most crucial literary aspect of the story, and it still would have worked even if the point of view was different.

This short story used many literary devices that were used with different importance in the story. We can see through analysis that the theme was the most crucial aspect followed by tone and point of view. These aspects exemplified the short story is a great way.