Paper 4 uses at least two quotations from a secondary source found in Essay

Paper 4 uses at least two quotations from a secondary source found in the Literature Resource Center database - Essay Example s to do with motherhood, and mother and daughter relationships, it focuses more on the struggle and necessity for determining one’s own self, in terms of identity and freedom of choice. Olsen’s characters, mother and daughter, depict two people desperately striving to find their ‘self’, independent of each other, and within the realms of a society that continually places expectations on its people, especially women. The narrator embarks on a valuation of her role as a mother, which includes â€Å"her own responsibility, her own failure, and finally her need to reaffirm her own autonomy as a separate human being who cannot be defined solely through her parental role.† (Frye p.130) Emily, the daughter grows from a small sickly, innocuous child and teenager, lacking in self confidence, to a nineteen year old who realizes her ‘self’ through comedy and is finally happy in her ability to make her own choices. The entire story is seen from the narrator’s – the mother’s perspective, wherein she provides a sequential accounting of her past; this past life description is often interrupted by reference to present needs, "Ronnie is calling. He is wet and I change him," (611) which helps to illustrate the never ending work and her responsibilities involved in being a mother and the lack of time for her to even gather her thoughts for a moment, â€Å"†¦and there will be an interruption and I will have to gather it all together again.† (608) The narrator provides an insight into the hardships of motherhood and her plight in having to raise her daughter on her own during the depression, â€Å"I was nineteen. It was pre-relief, pre-WPA world of the depression,† (609) and the inadequacies of child care, â€Å"when she [her daughter] was eight months old I had to leave her †¦ with the woman downstairs,† (609) and â€Å"the only way† she â€Å"could hold a job† (609) was by placing her daughter in an inadequate nursery, but â€Å"it was the only place there was.†