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Importance of identity in literature
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A person's identity is the essence of who they really are. Many struggle to find their own identity and must often manage between various identities. In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, the motif of identity is illustrated throughout the novels as they contain characters who have hidden personas. In Fun Home, Bruce Bechdel’s hidden identity is used to deny his own sexual orientation, even though displaying and engaging in homosexual activity. Art Spiegelman, writer of Maus, self-discovers his true identity while wearing a mouse mask. Marjane Satrapi’s childhood consists of her revolting under the rule of the Shah while wearing the veil. Despite the use of masks, these characters are unable to repress their true identity.
Fun Home’s Alison Bechdel reveals her lesbian identity which is built upon the closeted homosexuality of her father. It is speculated that the cause of Bruce Bechdel’s suicide is because he was unable to handle the contradiction between his false identity (as a heterosexual family-man) and his true identity (as a homosexual). Once the inevitable reveal of his true identity occurs, it is as if the death of his false identity was so real to him that it took him with it. Throughout the graphic novel, Bruce’s hidden identity will often reveal itself to the reader. For example: “He was an alchemist of appearance, a savant of surface, a Daedalus of décor” (6). One might begin to question Bruce’s love for flourishes and perfection. His character becomes more complex as you consider that he is married with kids. Bruce’s obsessive need to restore his Victorian home demonstrates the distance between him and his family. This barrier is connected with the protection of his h...
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...if of identity in the novel. He tells Marjane: “Don’t ever forget who you are. (148)” This quote is very significant as it shows how her father doesn’t want her to repress her true self. He is proud that she refuses to conform to something she doesn’t believe.
It has become evident that it is nearly impossible to repress one’s true self. Bruce Bechdel’s hidden identity gave him a distant life from his family and a tragic ending once revealed. Vladek Spiegelman, jack of all trades, could not escape his Jewish faith and was forced to live through the Holocaust. Marjane Satrapi, unable to contain her outspoken opinions and activism, moves to Austria for her own protection. As shown in these novels, maintaining contradicting personas can lead to trouble later on. Whether it be denying, discovering, or defying your identity, it is important to stay true to yourself.
Alison Bechdel uses her graphic memoir, Fun home, to explore her relationship with her father. She uses the book as a tool to reflect on her life and the affect her father had on her. She discovers how her fathers closeted sexuality affected her childhood and her transition into adulthood. His death left a powerful mark and left her searching for answers. She clearly states this when she says, “it’s true that he didn’t kill himself until I was nearly twenty. But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him.” (23). This feeling drove her to look back on their relationship and find what binds her so strongly to a man she never understood.
Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, documents the author's discovery of her own and her father's homosexuality. The book touches upon many themes, including, but not limited to, the following: sexual orientation, family relationships, and suicide. Unlike most autobiographical works, Bechdel uses the comics graphic medium to tell her story. By close-reading or carefully analyzing pages fourteen through seventeen in Fun Home one can get a better understanding of how a Bechdel employs words and graphic devices to render specific events. One can also see how the specific content of the pages thematically connects to the book as a whole. As we will see, this portion of the book echoes the strained relationship between Bruce Bechdel and his family and his attempts to disguise his homosexuality by creating the image of an ideal family, themes which are prevalent throughout the rest of the nook.
In the memoir, Fun Home, Alison Bechdel effectively depicted her life as a child all the way up to age nineteen when she finally decided to come out to her family. Growing up Alison’s path crossed paths with struggles that try to hinder her while she attempts to grasp on to the identity of being homosexual. Even though Bechdel encounter struggles she is able to overcome those struggles in a supportive environment. Despite her father, Bruce Bechdel homosexuality, which was unknown to Alison for the majority of her life could possibly be the emotional core of Fun Home. In actuality, it is Alison 's personal coming out party that assists her mother, Helen Bechdel, to expose Bruce 's hidden relationships to Alison. Effectively, the process of writing the memoir has really permitted Bechdel to reminisce about her father through the spectacles of her experiences, later giving her the chance to reveal clues about her father 's undercover desires that she was incapable of interpreting at the moment. In a scene where Bruce takes his openly queer daughter to a gay bar embodies the dissimilarities amongst Bruce and Alison 's attitudes of dealing with their homosexuality. Bruce tussles with the shame of hiding his
In chapter one, “Old Father, Old Artificer”, of her graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, the young Bechdel generated her identity through the tensions and mysteries that engulfed her family the home. Masculinity, physical strength and a modern outlook were her personality traits as she grew, becoming the “Butch to [her father’s] Nelly” (269) and his opposite in several aspects. A conscious effort was made on her part to set her own pace from what her father expected of her. He was a strong, influential figure within her life. Expressing emotions towards her father was strictly not allowed in the home. Bechdel was left “rushing from the room in embarrassment” (273) on the one unforgettable occasion that she went to kiss him goodnight. She...
...within her household. Within her own household, Alison was uncomfortable of being herself; in fact, at times she felt that she almost had no say in the selecting items such as clothes. This was also quite complex when it came to her subjectivity as well. Instances such as the time Bruce wanted Alison to wear a particular dress to a wedding, or when he insisted for her to were a particular set of pearls, would play a pivotal role in her sexual self development. Other factors such as her relationship with her girlfriend and the news she would find out following her fathers death seemed to also play an important part. Alison Bechdel’s battle in her sexual self-development was one full of anguish and pain because of all of its complexities but she now presents the confidence in herself and her sexuality to present in her eloquent and impactful graphic novel, Fun Home.
In Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Bruce Bechdel’s home restoration efforts are a recurring theme, and the details of his actions do not go unnoticed by young Allison. He is obsessed with perfection, but cannot break the belief in his daughter’s mind that his actions are not innocent, that there is a darker secret behind his drive. Understanding Bruce’s homosexuality and femininity gives light to the source of his obsession with restoration: Bruce’s laborious restoration both expresses and conceals his culturally unacceptable self-identity.
Alison Bechdel’s memoir Fun Home is a masterfully crafted piece. In comparison to the other memoirs we have read for this course, Fun Home is definitely, for me, the most intriguing and immersive of the three. Bechdel manages to develop an engaging and thought-provoking piece about trying to understand the people that we are close to and discovering who we, as individuals, are in relation to them. Fun Home is a story that is very specific to Bechdel’s life, but there is a universality to it since we have all been in families and we have all been mysteries to one another. Figuring out those mysteries and finding a way through life via those relationships is the true purpose of this narrative. Bechdel accomplishes this well crafted memoir with
Appearance versus reality played a major role in the relationship between Bechdel and her father. When Bechdel goes to college and realizes that she is a lesbian, she decides to live with her true sexuality. While speaking to her mother about her own sexuality, Bechdel finds out her father is gay and has had many affairs with men. Bechdel is upset that her father never decided to live and accept his reality. Bechdel believes her and her father might be able to find a way to connect around their homosexuality and develop a better relationship. Instead, Bechdel’s father chooses to live behind appearance to hide the truth and be accepted by society. From her father’s appearance, no one ever truly knows the truth about her family and their lives. As a result of Bechdel’s father not coming out, it builds a barrier between him and Alison. Bechdel calls her father an artificer because he has carefully crafted his whole life, which is a complete lie. Her father has been hiding his identity so no one knows it was there. Appearance hinders the possibility of developing a cohesive relationship between Bechdel and her father. Bechdel views the relationship between “artifice” and reality as negative because “artifice” hid the reality the would have allowed herself a better relationship and life with her father. She blames the idea of “artifice” for not allowing her to have a good relationship with her
A person’s identity develops from birth and is shaped by many components, including values and attitudes given at home. We all have a different perspective about who we want to be and what fits better with our personality. However, is our identity only shaped by personal choices or does culture play an important role here? It is a fact that the human being is always looking for an inclusion in society. For instance, there is a clear emphasis in both, “Masks”, by Lucy Grealy, and “Stranger in the Village”, by James Baldwin that identity can be shaped by culture. Grealy does a great job writing about the main issue that has made her life so difficult: her appearance. Cancer has placed her in a position where people,
Hidden sexuality is one that hides their own personal sexuality. Embracing sexuality makes an individual a better person than hiding one’s sexuality simply that one may be supported as Alison is in Fun Home. Fun Home written by Alison Bechdel is a tragicomic about the main character Alison and her dysfunctional family living in a “Fun Home.” Whereas hiding one’s sexuality is lying, embracing sexuality makes one a better person given that Alison was accepted when she “came out,” while her father kept it a secret and was not the ideal father for it.
In Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel entitled Fun Home, the author expresses her life in a comical manner where she explains the relationship between her and her family, pointedly her father who acts as a father figure to the family as she undergoes her exhaustive search for sexuality. Furthermore, the story describes the relationship between a daughter and a father with inversed gender roles as sexuality is questioned. Throughout the novel, the author suggests that one’s identity is impacted by their environment because one’s true self is created through the ability of a person to distinguish reality from fictional despotism.
The graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic was written by Alison Bechdel. The book is an autobiography about Alison Bechdel’s childhood. Throughout the book, Bechdel recounts her journey as she goes through adolescent life, struggling to understand her own identity and the identity of those close to her. Bechdel and her family would often use various artistic endeavors to express themselves instead of communication. Ultimately, this novel is about the unbearable isolation one can experience from a lack of affection and attention, and the effects it can have on one’s life.
Billions of people populate the earth, and each person is trying to be themselves. Every person has unique qualities that help define who they are. When qualities such as personalities, beliefs, and experiences come together an identity is formed. Without identities a person is not much of anything. The short story “The Vanishing American” by Charles Beaumont uses the element of invisibility to show how valuable an identity is to a person.
Identity is a state of mind in which someone recognizes/identifies their character traits that leads to finding out who they are and what they do and not that of someone else. In other words it's basically who you are and what you define yourself as being. The theme of identity is often expressed in books/novels or basically any other piece of literature so that the reader can intrigue themselves and relate to the characters and their emotions. It's useful in helping readers understand that a person's state of mind is full of arduous thoughts about who they are and what they want to be. People can try to modify their identity as much as they want but that can never change. The theme of identity is a very strenuous topic to understand but yet very interesting if understood. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez and Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki are two remarkable books that depict the identity theme. They both have to deal with people that have an identity that they've tried to alter in order to become more at ease in the society they belong to. The families in these books are from a certain country from which they're forced to immigrate into the United States due to certain circumstances. This causes young people in the family trauma and they must try to sometimes change in order to maintain a comfortable life. Both authors: Alvarez and Houston have written their novels Is such an exemplifying matter that identity can be clearly depicted within characters as a way in adjusting to their new lives.
Humanity is defined by one major factor: one’s understating of the self. By understanding one’s self, one can understand society and the world that surrounds themselves. There is one thing that can often distort one’s personality, one’s identity. By identifying as one thing a person can often change how they act or do certain things. This is often found to hide one’s true motives or intention, but it can also be used to hide hidden factors that aren’t as prevalent. One’s personality and identity are very closely linked, and tend to play off one another. This fact can be show in within multiple works. To name a few authors who demonstrate this fact: Clifford Geertz, Horace Miner, and Andrei Toom. Their works seek to dive deeper