Tillie Olsen's Reproductive Aesthetics.

The elaboration of a "compulsion to repeat" (602) in I Beyond the Pleasure Principle i is particularly relevant, as Eva's initial protest could be called "daemonic" (611) in Freud's sense: when, at the story's open, Eva acts in repetitive fashion, ostensibly in contradiction of her very own desires, Olsen draws our attention to some inexpressible psychic content. 23 Olsen, I Yonnondio i , 27. 24 Olsen, I Yonnondio i , 28-29. 25 For more on the woodcut's dominant position at the intersection of art, commerce, and social protest, see Simon Gikandi, I Slavery and the Culture of Taste i (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Linda Ray Pratt is one critic who reproduces Rosenfelt's sense that Olsen's artistic practice is commensurate with her avowed political commitments: she remarks that "the closer Olsen writes to autobiography, the finer her work." David and Eva, married for forty-seven years, with several adult children long departed from their care, cannot agree how they will spend the rest of their days. [Extracted from the article]