Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, is a memoir graphic novel that depicts her relationship with her father, and how despite her feelings that he was always someplace else mentally, and that they had very little in common, that in fact the two were very similar.
What we see in the second half of this graphic novel is more development and a better understanding of her stressed relationship with her father. The two bond over literature, and have this very emotional connection on that level, while still feeling that sense of detachment, as her father is repressing his sexuality.
We also see Alison's development, sexually and physically. She struggles with her identity, knowing that she has certain masculine qualities, and at a young age wishes she could identify as a boy, not understanding that sexuality and gender are two different things (at such an age, it would be rather confusing).
My question for you all is: when do you think Alison first discovers the difference between sexuality and gender, and when does she first have an inclination that perhaps her sexual attraction is to women? Hint: I would look to page 118; this is where I felt I saw it. Please discuss Alison's development and how you feel that affected her relationship with her father positively or negatively.
I would also like share, just for fun, the beginning/ending parallel of Icarus. I have attached the photo from the beginning, and now that we have finished the graphic novel, I challenge you to search the story of Icarus if you don't know it already, and try to relate that back to her relationship with her father considering the ending.
It seems to me that sexuality and gender are presented as inherently unstable categories. First, the mature narrative of Bechdel chronological narration - the reader knows about Alison's sexuality before she does. The irony of the depiction of Alison on pages 80 and 118 pervades the text. Therefore the reader waits for some transition between these two Alison's but this happens incrementally and so the transition reveals the psychological, social, and biological confluences. That is, there's an awful lot of stuff going on in Alison's life for categories to make much sense. Plus, categories are largely afterthoughts, way to order thinking, and usually not the genesis of thought.
ReplyDeleteSecond, the theme of Icarus is immediately corrupted. Corruption carries no negative connotation here, I love the move - it's clever and ordering and confounding in an astounding way. Bruce is presented as both father and son, Daedalus and Icarus, artificer and fallen. Alison also holds contradictory roles in this system. She is son of Daedalus, daughter of Bruce, but because Bruce is also both Daedalus and Icarus a relationship of potential falls is created between the two. So, both gender is flattened, as well as generational space, but not uselessly. The flattening orders thinking and allows Alison to fit her narrative to other more accessible narratives.
More on Bruce and corrupted allusions: he is a martyr (Christlike), the home a labyrinth and he it's minotaur, but also its artificer. Perhaps then, the rest of the family are the monsters. This, I think, intensifies the instability between father and daughter and makes the connection between the two more accessible and capable of significance.
In the second chapter there are allusions to Camus, Proust, the Addams family, Russel's paradox. And so the characterization of her father and her family is forwarded by both high and low expressions of culture. Bechdel accesses a works from across time, space, cultural divide in order to construct a more useful narrative, this occurs as you said, with greater efficacy as the narrative progresses - but the reader experiences the instability of narrative through Alison's anxiety over her diary, the source material of the narrative.
Proust and Camus also fit into the theme of provincial versus cosmopolitan thinking. In the development of this theme, particularly those episodes in which Bruce's life is plotted along a map in comparison to his thinking, writing, and living while abroad, an insistence is placed on what might have been. This too helps to characterize categories like sexuality and gender as being highly dependent on location, social clime.
The conflict of the narrative seems to be the difference between Alison's "inappropriate" sexuality and her father's "inappropriate" sexuality. To explore the relationship between the two, Bechdel invokes a variety of already corrupted symbols, or soon to be corrupted by their use in the narratives. The corruption reads to me as perfectly valid and not as inappropriate. The role of artificer and social clime conflict and create Bruce's fall which in turn informs Alison's rise while encountering similar issues. Importantly then Alison role of artificer contains no trace of a future fall - the narrative is one of progress through and despite instabilities of categories like gender, sexuality, but also low and high culture, father and son, and daughter and son.
I have never heard a story like this so I was automatically intrigued... I feel like Alison was subtly, heavily influenced by her father and his secret behavior. Even if she didn't make the connection until later in life, it was clear in the writings that she kind of looked to up to her father, like any child does, looking for his approval. All the times she cringed over her father's extreme decor and fashion tastes, I feel like she was running the opposite way and because it made her feel a certain abandon as a child.
ReplyDeleteSo, realizing this and adding it to the pieces I feel like she knew what she was going to be at a very young age. Her taste was very particular and not girly... Towards the end of the book she talks more about her discovery at such young age as 4! How she saw that truck driver and was inspired by her wardrobe. Her curiosity peaked during teen years and discovered what she wanted in life.
Fun Home does a really great job of depicting two separate people who share the same struggles in life. Although she doesn’t realize it until much later, I believe that her father suppressing his own sexuality resulted in him suppressing hers. You see it often in the first half of the story, her father Bruce takes special care to make sure that Alison looks the part. Always adjusting her dresses and making sure her outfits match just right. He is very concerned with making sure it appears that they are the perfect family.
ReplyDeleteThe scene that sticks out to me the most is when they go to the beach and she is allowed to wear swimming trucks on the beach. She is young and has not developed breasts yet. But she specifically recalls this moment in time as a time when her parents finally concede to her desires and wishes and she feels free.
I think in particular the opening scenes reference to Daedalus and Icarus is especially important in setting the tone of the novel. If Alison’s father Bruce is Daedalus, would it seem that his expertly crafted creations resulted in Alison’s eventual metaphorical demise.