Tillie Olsen's fiction and essays have been widely
and rightly acknowledged, particularly by contemporary
feminists, as major contributions to American
literature. Yet few of Olsen's readers realize the extent
to which her vision and choice of subject are rooted in
an earlier literary heritage—the tradition of radical
political thought, mostly socialist and anarchist, of the
1910's and 1920's, and the Old Left tradition of the
1930's. I do not mean that one can adequately explain
the eloquence of her work in terms of its political
origins, or that left-wing politics were the single most
important influence on it. My point is that its central
consciousness—its profound understanding of class and
gender as shaping influences on people's lives—owes
much to that earlier literary heritage.