Mary Gaitskill's - Tiny Smiling Daddy

The most difficult time in a child’s relationship with his/her parents is mainly during its teenage years. These are times of rebellion, disagreement, strong emotion, psychological changes and sexual experimentation just to name a few. In Mary Gaitskill’s short story “Tiny, Smiling Daddy”, the main theme “of how people seek intimacy but don’t know how to achieve it” (Gaitskill, 289) is conveyed by the author through the characters, symbolism and setting and imagery.

Firstly, the two main characters in this story, Kitty and Stew, are crucial elements of the story to present its theme. When Kitty was a child, her and Stew were intimate. She would laugh at her father’s jokes about playing with the hairs of his nose. (Gaitskill, 290) This intimacy did not last as Kitty hit her teenage years which are known to result in big personal changes. She now despised her father’s jokes. This period of her life is when the intimacy with Stew is lost. Later, she “turned into a glum, weird teenager that other kids picked on. She got skinny and ugly.”(Gaitskill, 290) The situation gets more complicated when Kitty tells her parents that she is a lesbian. Stew is so ashamed of her that he no longer knows how to be close with his daughter. When she is twenty-two, she visits her parents for Christmas and she is beautiful again: “It was a beauty that both offended and titillated his senses.”(Gaitskill, 293) Stew wants to be intimate with Kitty but the fact that she is so different holds him back. By writing the article in the magazine Self, Kitty explains how she would like to be close with her father again but it is hard for her to speak her thoughts: ‘The article went on to describe how Kitty hung up the phone feeling frustrated and then listed all the things that she could’ve said to him to let him know how hurt she was, paving the way for “real communication.”’(Gaitskill, 295) By putting emphasis on the relationship of Kitty and Stew, Gaitskill manages to convey the theme without problems.

Secondly, symbolism also plays an important role in expressing the theme of the story. A symbol which is referred to in “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” is “the final act of La Bohиme,”(Gaitskill, 291) in which two characters are singing a song: “O Mimi, will you not return?”(Wikipedia) In this act of the opera “they are bemoaning the loss of their loved one.”(Wikipedia) The fact that the author decided to include this play in the story is no coincidence. It symbolizes how Stew misses his daughter and how he would like to be close to her. Another symbol in this story is the “tiny, smiling daddy” which Stew does not agree with. This element represents the inner parent meaning that it is Kitty’s own judgment that helped her get through difficult times: “I would have acknowledged my own needs and created the possibility to connect with what therapists call ‘the good parent’ in myself.”(Gaitskill, 295) This tiny, smiling daddy stands for everything that Stew is not: a supportive, accepting and truly loving parent with who Kitty can have intimacy. Then, there is the relationship Stew had with his own father which can be viewed as a symbol that reflects on the relationship between Stew and Kitty. Stew admired his father, yet he rejected him: “Its almost godlike stillness and expressionless filled him with admiration and reassurance, until one day, his father slowly looked up from his cereal, met his eyes and said, ‘Stop staring at me you little shit.’”(Gaitskill, 298) Kitty herself experienced similar from Stew himself: “And if you ever try to come back here I’m going to spit on