"She's only a girl," he said" (Munro,11). This quote expresses the narrator's failure however it is the father who has really failed. His influence on his daughter has diminished her character and left her forever dissatisfied with the final outcome of her life. In this story the narrator's nature had a greater influence on her character while the nurture of her father gave her an impossible expectation which diminished her happiness.
Vanessa's father in "The Loons"" had a very different message attached to his influence, in fact, it was a good message that even I would agree with. In "The Loons " Vanessa's father asks her to connect with someone who she otherwise would not have.The issue is that naturally Vanessa isn't interested in Piquette and that Vanessa is left forcing herself to make a connection that isn't there to meet her father's wishes. At the beginning of the story Vanessa is passive to Piquette, "She existed for me only as a vaguely embarrassing presence, with her hoarse voice and her clumsy limping walk and her grimy cotton dresses"" (Laurence, 1). Naturally Vanessa held the popular opinion that Piquette was unclean and not even worth acknowledging. It was only when her father asked her to reach out to her that she tried to connect with Piquette. "I only felt that I ought to, because of that distant summer and because my father had hoped she would be company for me" "(Laurence, 5). As positive as his influence was, Vanessa's father gave her an expectation that she could not meet. She naturally had no interest or connection with Piquette. As soon as her father died she lost interest for 4 years, and in the end she only heard of Paquette's fate as a passing comment from her mother. I hoped that her father's nurture would have prevailed, that Vanessa would learn to reach out to everyone around her, but in the end her father's nurture only brought her guilt that she could not meet her father's expectations.