Mama's Silent Storm: The Resentment of Keeping Secrets and Living an Unwanted Life

Since this post is focusing on analytic themes in the work, I'd like to quickly mention that I really enjoyed this memoir, and it may have been my favorite.

In his graphic memoir, Stitches, David Small uses his vivid imagination to illustrate his tumultuous relationship with his parents throughout his life. His daydreams and dreams are manifestations of the desire for a new life, one where he is happy and not surrounded by family members who curse his own existence. However, Small's mother is the main culprit of the resentment and disdain towards Small, and Small believes it is in part because of her being forced to keep her lesbian identity a secret.

From the very beginning, the readers are given insight on Mama's mannerism and the sadness brewing underneath her grim appearance. The readers know from the beginning that Mama is resentful of her lifestyle, although why is not immediately known, but the sadness is hidden more than her resentment. On page 15, Small mentions his mother sobbing once or twice, but any incidents of crying were always behind closed doors and quietly. The anger that she feels at being forced to hide her true identity and live a life of lies is much more apparent. When I first started reading this memoir, I thought Small's mother might be a lesbian, and re-reading the memoir after this knowledge is confirmed made it easier to see the clues and implications Small worked into the prose and graphics. On page 16, Small describes that he and his brother never knew what their mother's stormy silences were about, but his father did. His father was aware of the secret life and his wife's unhappiness with their marriage, so he hid himself down in the basement and took his anger out on the punching bag. Small never really says if his father actually loved his mother at any point, but it is clear from their interactions that Small's mother did not love her husband.

Small is chronically sick throughout his childhood, and his mother also resents him for that. The scenes on page 18 and 19 demonstrate the mother's resentfulness towards Small and how frustrated and trapped she feels as a mother. In the bottom panel, her face is screwed up in a look of disdain at taking care of Small and the teddy bear lying on the ground. While Mama does pick up the bear to give to Small, the readers see her toss the stuffed animal onto the bed rather than handing it to Small directly. Even the panel where she is seen picking up the bear, she holds it from one arm, in a fashion where she doesn't show much care for the toy or her son. However reluctantly and resentfully she gives the bear back to Small, she did give it back instead of leaving it on the floor. I took that to mean there was some glimmer of empathy for her son, but it was so deep below resentment and sadness.

Mama, who was said by Small to be silently angry throughout most of the book, opens up to her young son when they are returning to her mother's home and where she was raised. I thought this was because maybe she wanted an ally upon returning to her mother's home, because the house itself represents pain for Mama. The grandmother is a reflection of Mama herself, a bitter woman who dealt with hardship, and Mama is afraid to see herself get to that point. There is the scene after Small is left alone with his grandmother, where Mama shows the most emotion she has in the memoir, or at least emotion that isn't completely resentment. The scene starts off on  page 83 with Mama going to play golf with an old girlfriend, which I interpreted to mean that she was going somewhere where she didn't have to hide who she really was or who she was really interested in.

Fast forward to Mama coming home on Page 98, where Small begins to voice his concerns about being left alone with his grandmother. Continuing on to page 99, when Small tells his mother that he is afraid of the grandmother, the fifth frame shows Mama's face frighteningly blank. I use the word "frighteningly" because Mama has always had some sort of expression on her face until this frame, and I got the sense that Small's feelings reflected hers when she was a child, and even in the present. This is further supported by Mama closing the door and showing the first real sign of concern towards Small, and it's because she knows what her mother can be capable of. On page 101, Small begins to say that his grandmother is crazy, but Mama quickly covers his mouth, and the last panel on the page shows Mama actually looking scared and that she is an adult looking this way supports the thought that her own mother, also called Mama by her, treated in a similar fashion that she treated Small a few pages earlier. The creaking noises are familiar to Mama, and she is instantly afraid of what may happen. On page 102, her fear becomes anger and she states "listen to me: I don't ever want to hear you say that word again! Do you hear me? Never!" (Small 102), and I wonder if it is because she is upset that her mother still makes her afraid or if she is upset because she sees her childhood being repeated in Small, as well as realizing she is taking the role of her mother.

Mama's resentment towards Small is really emphasized on with her bridge party. Small is seen as responsible for ruining her good time, especially with her lover (unknown at the time), and Mama is resentful of her son ruining the evening for her. It doesn't even occur to her that her son could possibly be fatally ill, but rather, that he is once again, encroaching on her efforts to have the life she truly wants. One filled with parties and hanging around beautiful women, especially Mrs. Dillon. Small himself says that on bridge club nights, "-something happened to [his] mother. She became someone I hardly recognized" (113-114), but that glimpse of who Mama really is or who she wants to be disappears as she is made aware of his growth on his beck. On page 119, Mama's fists are clenched as Small examines his neck in the mirror, while Mrs. Dillon tells Mama to get his neck looked at. Small's growth is controlling Mama's life again, whether she wants it to or not, and she expresses her resentment at this by lording it over Small that a doctor is a privilege and she makes it seem like Small's need for a doctor is his fault, and not one of nature.

Briefly, I wanted to mention the section where Small's father gets a raise and buys Mama a new car. On page 140, Mama is seen driving the car with both she and her husband smiling, but for different reasons. Her husband is smiling because he believes she is finally happy with what he can provide for her, but Mama is smiling because this car is fast and it allows her to believe that she can vanish from the life that she felt forced into, like a rocket. The bottom frame of the page shows Mama leaving the house behind in her mind, flying off towards the sky with great determination. This is a representation of the life she wants to lead, but only can dream about.

Another moment that really struck me was when Mama comes to visit Small in the hospital room, the night before his second surgery. Any sort of empathy or care towards Small has been reluctant up until this point, but on page 171, Small drew Mama wiping away tears from her eyes. This is the first time the readers and Small himself (to our knowledge) see Mama cry while not being behind closed doors. Small later explains that she was being generous because she thought he was going to die, but he never said whether or not she felt guilty about the way she allowed her resentment to bubble up and impact their relationship. However, I can assume that there was some sort of guilt involved due to the tears, and even then, Mama probably had conflicting feelings about Small and his cancer, resenting that he was so sick but also feeling guilty about how she treated him and for thinking his cancer was his fault. At the end of the book, Small finds the circumstances reversed and he is the one who is standing over the bed of his dying mother. There is no anger or ill-will in this scene, and there is no dialogue, but actions speak words as Small takes his mother's hand and cradles her face in his other hand. On page 307, Mama cries for the second time openly, and it's probably for various reasons, but ultimately, it is because her son found the heart to forgive her and show his love for her when she couldn't do the same for him and when she couldn't separate her resentment from her raising him.

Also briefly, I want to address the dream at the very end of the memoir. I mentioned earlier that Mama perhaps saw herself in both her mother and Small, because she was treated how Small was when she was younger yet she was following in her mother's footsteps in how she treated her son. I interpreted Small's dream to mean that Mama was showing Small the way to follow in her and her mother's footsteps of living a life of resentment and mistreating their children, but Small made the decision not to follow and as far as the readers know, he ended the cycle of resentment and abuse.

Best,
Dani

(I enjoyed being in class with all of you- thanks for a great semester!)