Tell me a riddle

580 Pages·1995·1.37 MB·English

by  Tillie Olsen

Tell Me a Riddle Women Writers (New
title:
Brunswick, N.J.)
author: Olsen, Tillie.
publisher: Rutgers University Press
isbn10 | asin: 081352136X
print isbn13: 9780813521367
ebook isbn13: 9780585002682
language: English
Cancer--Patients--Fiction, Married people--
Fiction, Working class--Fiction, Aged
subject
women--Fiction, Olsen, Tillie.--Tell me a
riddle.
publication date: 1995
lcc: PS3565.L82T45 1995eb
ddc: 813/.54
Cancer--Patients--Fiction, Married people--
Fiction, Working class--Fiction, Aged
subject: women--Fiction, Olsen, Tillie.--Tell me a
riddle.
''Tell Me a Riddle"
Women Writers
Texts and Contexts
SERIES EDITORS
THOMAS L. ERSKINE
Salisbury State University
CONNIE L. RICHARDS
Salisbury State University
SERIES BOARD
MARTHA BANTA
University of California at Los Angeles
BARBARA T. CHRISTIAN
University of California at Berkeley
PAUL LAUTER
Trinity College
VOLUMES IN THE SERIES
CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, ''The Yellow Wallpaper"
Edited by Thomas L. Erskine and Connie L. Richards, Salisbury
State University
JOYCE CAROL OATES, "Where Are You Going,
Where Have You Been?"
Edited by Elaine Showalter, Princeton University
FLANNERY O'CONNOR, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
Edited by Frederick Asals, University of Toronto
TILLIE OLSEN, "Tell Me a Riddle"
Edited by Deborah Silverton Rosenfelt, University of Maryland,
College Park
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER, "Flowering Judas"
Edited by Virginia Spencer Carr, Georgia State University
LESLIE MARMON SILKO, "Yellow Woman"
Edited by Melody Graulich, University of New Hampshire
ALICE WALKER, "Everyday Use"
Edited by Barbara T. Christian, University of California,
Berkeley
HISAYE YAMAMOTO, "Seventeen Syllables"
Edited by King-Kok Cheung, University of California, Los
Angeles
''Tell Me a Riddle"
TILLIE OLSEN
Edited and with an introduction by
DEBORAH SILVERTON ROSENFELT
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Olsen, Tillie.
Tell me a riddle / Tillie, Olsen; edited and with an introduction by
Deborah Silverton Rosenfelt.
p. cm. - (Women writers: texts and contexts)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8135-2136-X (cloth) - ISBN 0-8135-2137-8 (pbk.)
1. CancerPatientsUnited StatesFiction. 2. Married people
United StatesFiction. 3. Working classUnited StatesFiction.
4. Aged womenUnited StatesFiction. 5. Olsen, Tillie. Tell me a riddle.
I. Rosenfelt, Deborah Silverton. II. Title. III. Series: Women writers
(New Brunswick, N.J.)
PS3565. L82T45 1995
813'.54-dc20
94-29813
CIP
British Cataloging-in-Publication information available
This collection copyright © 1995 by Rutgers, The State University
For copyrights to individual pieces please see first page of each essay.
Published by Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ All rights
reserved
For Miranda
Contents
Introduction 3
DEBORAH SILVERTON ROSENFELT
Chronology 27
Tell Me a Riddle 33
TILLIE OLSEN
Background to the Story
Silences in Literature 87
TILLIE OLSEN
Personal Statement 105
TILLIE OLSEN
Critical Essays
The Circumstances of Silence: Literary Representation 113
and Tillie Olsen's Omaha Past
LINDA RAY PRATT
From the Thirties: Tillie Olsen and the Radical 133
Tradition
DEBORAH SILVERTON ROSENFELT
A Feminist Spiritual Vision 177
ELAINE NEIL ORR
Death Labors 199
JOANNE TRAUTMANN BANKS
Motherhood as Source and Silencer of Creativity 213
MARA FAULKNER
To ''Bear My Mother's Name": Künstlerromane by 243
Women Writers
RACHEL BLAU DuPLESSIS