Tell me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Works by: Tillie Olsen

1. Tell me a Riddle, Requa I, and Other Worksby: Tillie Olsen Sections: Forward – Introduction xix I Stand Here Ironing Hey Sailor, What Ship

2. Forwardby: Laurie Olsen • By Laurie Olsen’s last name we can assume that she is part of Tillie’s family but we don’t know how she is related to Tillie. • In this passage, we receive a great insight to Tillie’s character. • “you give new life to her words” • Tillie showed great love to “writers whose lives and writing touched her deeply” (pg. vii) • She kept photos of their faces, their homes, and other various things around her house and on her person. • She would also talk for hours with random strangers. • “The stories of their lives, their struggles, and their dreams poured out” (pg. viii).

3. Introduction to page xixBy: Rebekah edwards • “The people recorded, enlivened, and imagined in these writings astound and challenge and inspire; they may simultaneously break our hearts and offer us solace” (pg. xi). • We learn about Tillie’s determined nature and how she tried to pull together so many different writing techniques (such as stream-of-consciousness, allegories, slang, and idioms) to bring 3-D life to her stories. • “I Stand Here Ironing” and “Tell Me a Riddle” were included in Best American Short Stories. “Tell Me a Riddle” won the O. Henry Award in 1961. • As stated by London Times, “Out of poverty and hardship… [Olsen] reveals with compression, depth, and passionate economy of language a working class American that few writers have known or realized existed” (pg. xiv). • What do you think Olsen saw that other writers have overlooked?

4. Introduction to page xixBy: Rebekah edwards • “I Stand Here Ironing” is suppose to be a story about the struggles of young motherhood and the difficulties that working-class women had to face in the US. • “Hey Sailor, What Ship?” is suppose to be about a Sailor named Whitey and the family of Lennie and Helen. It is a story about the loss of not only one drunken marine but the loss felt by many people who were struggling through the Great Depression. • “O Yes”, is a story told through Helen’s perspective as she watches her daughter become confined by the “systematic racial segregation” going on at the time. • “Tell Me a Riddle” is about the struggles within the marriage of David and Eva. They have become estranged to each other with conflicting needs asthey struggle through life. It is a story about how “life can slaughter love” (pg. xv) • How does life “slaughter love”?

5. Introduction to page xixBy: Rebekah edwards • “Requa I” was included in Best American Short Stories in 1971 and is said to be Olsen’smost complex work. • Requa is a small town on the Klamath River in Northern California. • “Requa I” does not resolve and the manuscript for the 2nd part was lost. • It is a story on the “tenacity of human endurance, regeneration, and creativity…” (pg xvii). It is about a boy named Stevie who had just lost his mother and is now forced to live with his uncle Wes in Requa, an unfamiliar place. • As he tries to heal, Stevie finds that his job at a junk yard is similar to how he sees his life, “sorting the things that have been destroyed, cast off, abandoned” to see “what is salvageable, what can be repurposed and put to use” (pg. xviii).

6. I Stand Here Ironing • Tillie talks about her first child. She was 19 at the time. • We learn how her husband had left her soon after their daughter’s birth. But due to money concerns, Tillie sent her daughter to be raised by her father until the age of 2. • The relationship between Tillie and Emily was strained but Emily was a well mannered child for her mother. • After some persuasion, Tillie sent Emily to a convalescent home. • (pg 9) What do you think the treatment of the children was like? • Why does Tillie continue to have children when she can not adequately support her first child?

7. I Stand Here Ironing • We learn that Emily did poorly in school but was found to be a great comedian due to her entry at her school’s amateur show. • Emily would perform for many different events and soon let it direct her life. • “Only help her to know – help make it so there is cause for her to know – that she is more than this dress on the ironing board, helpless before the iron”

8. Hey sailor, What Ship? • From the point of view of a drunk sailor, Whitey. Short sentences with occasional slurred words to emphasize this. • We quickly learn that the sailor is headed to “Lennie and Helen and the kids” but had gotten distracted and drunk on the way. • No quotation marks for when a person is speaking. What could this mean? • “Never saw so many peaceful wrecks in my life” (pg. 22).

9. Hey sailor, What Ship? • Whitey sees that the family doesn’t have a lot of food so he goes out to buy as much food as he can. But he doesn’t return until 5 days later. • Whitey has a lot of scars on his face and in his memories that he feels ashamed of. (pg29) • The poem El Ultimo Adios by Jose Rizal in 1896 just a few days before his execution. • However, the poem Whitey recites, is not truly El Ultimo Adios. Land that I love: farewell: O land the sun loves: Pearl of the sea of the Orient: Eden lost to your brood! Gaily go I to present you this hapless hopeless life; Were it more brilliant: had it more freshness, more bloom: Still for you would I give it: would give it for your good!

10. Hey sailor, What Ship? • Jeannie questions why her parents let Whitey live with them. She calls him a “Howard Street wino” (pg. 32). • When remembering the past, Whitey seems to have a very pessimistic attitude. • “And later there were memories to forget, dreams to be stifled, hopes to be murdered” (pg. 32) From this one sentence and past knowledge, what do you think Whitey’s life has been like? • In all, this short story is about a sailor named Whitey who goes through his life in a drunken haze although he tries to be there for his friends. But whenever he tries to get better, he will eventually go back to the bottle. The overall theme seems to be that of loss, the loss of family, memories, dreams, hopes, and overall life. • How does the phrase “Hey Sailor, What Ship?” add to this theme?