The story, I Stand Here Ironing, contains binary oppositions which work together to support the structure of the text. I listed several of these oppositions in my notes, but I am only going to discuss a few that I found were connected to each other throughout the story. These oppositions are: the past vs. the present, a healthy Emily vs. an un-healthy Emily, Emily with an appetite vs. Emily without an appetite, and a loving parent vs. a non-loving parent. These oppositions alone do not make the story interesting, however. It is how these oppositions are arranged and tied together that makes the story work. From the beginning of the story the mother was ironing and thinking about what she could do to help her daughter Emily. Her thoughts had a negative connotation, she remembered when Emily was sick, when she was left home alone because her mother had to work, and when Emily was abandoned by her mother and sent to a convalescent home. Emily's mother also recalled her appearance at one time in Emily's life when she looked, "thin, dark, and foreign looking." These thoughts of Emily's childhood are being generated by her mother's attempt to deal with how she brought up her child. The ironing is symbolic for Emily's past her mother is literally ironing out the wrinkles of the past.
             Throughout the story the narrator jumps from the present to the past and back to the present again. She does this several times, what she is doing is having flashbacks of when her daughter Emily, was a child. The opposition here is the present vs. the past. The activities the mother was engaged in, whether it was ironing a dress or taking care of her son Ronnie seemed to trigger these flashbacks. The flashbacks were related to Emily whatever the mother is doing somehow she flashes back to a time in Emily's life.
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