“Tiny, Smiling Daddy” is a well acclaimed story by Mary Gaitskill. The story depicts the period of adolescence, how adolescents think and the relationship of father and daughter. The author has beautifully portrayed how teenagers pass through an intricate situation and relationship with their parents in their adolescence. The story revolves around the characters kitty and her father stew, emotions and the dramatic situations that come around.
Kitty in her childhood was very close to her father stew but as she grew up, her behavior was changed in a dramatic way and she twirled into a weird teenager. The real problem starts when stew came to know that his daughter is a lesbian, stew was not only shocked to know it but also got angered, not on kitty but on himself. Stew starts introspecting that what went wrong and how his daughter was changed this way, irrespective of his care and intimacy with kitty. Once stew receives a phone call from one of his fiend Norm, who informs stew about an article, published in a magazine and which is about stew. The article was written by kitty about her relationship with her father, this was very embarrassing for stew.
The author in this story has also highlighted the clash of values, relations and thinking. Steve never wanted her daughter to be a lesbian and he always cared for her but in the influence of lifestyle, thinking and atmosphere kitty revolted against her parents and became lesbian. Stew as a father has been shown helpless, frustrated and a victim of loneliness in the story. The character, stew has been portrayed as antagonist and a victim, simultaneously by the author in this story.
Work Cited
Gaitskill, Mary. Because they wanted to: stories. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
