The mother-daughter relationship between Guta and Monkey

Guta’s relationship with Monkey is shown in a few domestic moments that make motherhood tangible: she tends the household while Monkey sleeps, and she reports how insistently the child asks for her father. The bond is loving, but it exists under the strain of Monkey’s difference and the family’s uncertainty about whether she can have an ordinary life among other children.

Care in the Household

When Redrick comes home and asks how Monkey is, Guta tells him that the child babbled all evening and was difficult to get to bed. Monkey kept asking where her daddy was and wanting him. Guta’s account makes her a watchful intermediary between child and father, conveying both the ordinary rhythm of bedtime and the intensity of Monkey’s attachment.

The scene also gives Guta a vivid presence in her own right. She moves quickly and quietly in the kitchen as water boils, fish scales fly beneath her knife, and butter sizzles in a pan. Her care is embedded in practical work rather than separated from it: the meal is being prepared while she answers Redrick’s question and recounts the evening.

A Family’s Concern for Monkey

Later, Redrick raises the possibility that the two of them might move to an isolated country cottage. His question about Monkey turns the proposal from a private escape into a question about their daughter’s future. Guta answers by pointing to Monkey’s love of children and their love of her, insisting that the other children are not to blame for the painful circumstances surrounding the situation.

The exchange presents Guta’s maternal concern as affectionate but clear-eyed. She does not treat the children who love Monkey as responsible for what troubles the family, nor does the conversation resolve the question of whether moving away would make Monkey’s life better. Instead, it holds together her belief in the human warmth around Monkey and the unresolved burden that makes Redrick imagine retreating from other people.

Significance of the Bond

The relationship is defined through attachment and care rather than through an extended account of Monkey’s condition. Monkey’s repeated calls for her father and Guta’s report of them establish a child who seeks closeness; Guta’s response to Redrick’s proposal places her attention on whether Monkey can share affection with other children. Domestic routine and a brief discussion of isolation thus reveal both the intimacy of this family bond and the limits of what the parents can confidently promise their daughter.