Yet the reader can easily piece together this scenario: the harried working mother trying to find a spouse sends away her daughter so that (as an unattached woman) she can pursue romance and remarriage. That the daughter had been shuffled out of the way in favor of romance is made evident by the fact that once she returns she is severely marginalized by her mother's relationship with her stepfather. For example, they frequently leave this little five-year-old home alone when they go out together at night -- something that by modern standards is considered abusive. In fact, Emily is obviously traumatized by this, and becomes frightened and delusional. This overwhelming fear is made worse when her mother gives birth to a second child. When her sister is born, Emily is entirely pushed aside in favor of the newcomer. One cannot easily justify her mother's selfishness in this case. When her first child is ill with the red measles, she doesn't even go in to check on her when she has terrible fever dreams and becomes delirious. "She did not get well... she would call for me... I would rouse from exhaustion to sleepily call back: 'you're all right, darling, go to sleep, it's just a dream.',, only twice, when I had to get up for Susan anyhow, I went in to sit with her." (Olsen, 205) Eventually, when the first child becomes too much of a bother, they ship her off to the convalescent home without first researching whether she will be well treated there. They delay eight months before...

From that day forward, however, it appears that Emily is used as a sort of unpaid baby-sitter. Her own schooling is allowed to suffer while she cares for the other children.
It is important to notice that while the narrator blames Emily's school problems on her lack of beauty and outgoingness, it is evident from the description she gives of Emily's "seal" that the real problem here is that Emily is being forced to run herself ragged caring for the other children. As the mother says, 'I let her be absent" -- but in truth, it appears she caused her to be. This again could be blamed on society, but there is at least a certain degree to which the mother herself is at fault. She continues to have children when doing so will force her to go back to work to support them, after all. Though in the end the mother comes around and becomes less selfish, the damage is already done.

Of course, all this talk of guilt and blame assumes there is something wrong with the way Emily turned out. It is fair to say that there was some fault in her being sad and abused -- but in the end, as the narrator herself suggests, she is not really in such poor shape. She is not normal-- but she may be far better than normal. She does not use all her talent, but she has a talent she might otherwise not have developed at all. She has embraced the grief in her life, and transformed it. As her mother suggests, it might be best just to "Let her be.... " (Olsen, 209)