As the author mentions, both narrators suffer or experience oppression. In “Everyday Use,” Walker implies that the mother still lives under the shadow of slavery when she mentions that she could not look into the white man's eyes (337). Similarly, Olsen, in his story “I Stand Here Ironing,” writes: “I was nineteen years old. This was the world of the Depression before relief and before the WPA” (224). Although the symbols in both stories have their implications; however, the act of ironing and quilting represents women's chores. Both stories demonstrate that women are generally presented as housewives. Alice Walker and Tillie Olsen embody the tension of the mother-daughter relationship. The two stories have different conflicts, but they share one of the tensions; distance. In “Everyday Use,” there is a distance between the narrator and her daughter Dee due to different levels of education. They couldn't communicate with each other because they weren't on the same level. The narrator of “I Stand Here Ironing” also has a complex relationship with her daughter Emily, as she has been absent from Emily's life and development. Although there is some conflict in the mother-daughter relationship, Emily and Dee continue to