Analysis Of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

In her novel Fun Home, Alison Bechdel recalls the difficulty to communicate to her father who seemed to live in an entirely different world than her. Her father is a mystery; hiding his homosexuality behind an elaborate lie. Often depicted as distant and angry he turns out to be possibly the most influential person to Bechdel. He has many flaws but Bechdel explains she is thankful for some of those since they helped form who she is today, and ultimately is the reason she is alive. The only way to elucidate her father to the audience was to use those same fictional literary works to describe her father’s true character that he lived in because when conversations weren’t present there were still connections between them two through books.

Bechdel’s comparison of the Great Gatsby with her father describes his pursuit and delusional attempt to keep a grasp on a fictional life.

There is clear evidence of the father’s interest in the story on page sixty-three of Fun House, the father shares with his wife in a letter to the fondness of the characters and lifestyle within the Great Gatsby. Later in the book, Bechdel shares a comparison between her father and Gatsby, by elaborating on a scene in the book where a drunken guest wanders into Gatsby’s library and discovers the books aren’t fakes. But the pages weren’t cut either. In contrast all the father’s books are creased and clearly read. In the book, Gatsby attempts to lure Daisy into accepting him by to become rich with the insecurity that she wouldn’t love him if she knew he wasn’t born with money. Gatsby abandons who he was entirely do be what he believes Daisy will want. The father was always renovating the family’s house and committing to projects that gave people the idea that the family was rich. “Gatsby’s self –willed metamorphosis from farm boy to prince is in many ways identical to my father’s (Bechdel p.63).” Bechdel sums up the similarities between her father and Gatsby in the passage: “But in a way Gatsby’s pristine books and my father’s worn ones signify the same thing – the preference of a fiction to reality (Bechdel

p.85).”
Unable to reach out properly, the father leant the book Colette: Earthly Paradise to Bechdel in order to send a message.

This gesture is a part of what I think is the most important part of the book. The book is an autobiography compromised of Colette’s writings throughout her life including some of her sexual relationships as a lesbian. “One art scholar describes her work with this quote: In reading Chéri and Gigi, by French novelist, Colette, one remarks the sensual, stylistic descriptions of characters, settings, and situations (Keady 5).” The father shared this book before Bechdel announced she is homosexual. Her father’s responded on the phone: “At least you’re human. Everyone should experiment…Do you have to put a label on yourself? (Bechdel 210). This is the only moment the father purely attempts to help Bechdel and he does it by lending the Colette: Earthly Paradise, which proves he tried to help and be there for Bechdel. This gesture is so important because this isn’t about communicating to the world through his daughter as he did in dressing her and educating her based on how he fantasized a daughter should look like. This book referral was simply in support of his daughter, which makes it such a powerful moment in the story. It later leads to a conversation with Bechdel on the car ride to a movie. During the conversation the father admitted that he suggested the book due to a suspicion he had over his daughter’s sexuality. He later opened up about his past

relationships with some boys and how he wanted to be a girl when he was younger and even dressed like a girl sometimes. Bechdel also cross-dressed when she was young. Where the father could’ve helped her with similar insecurities – like dealing with growing up unsure of her sexuality – he did not due to his constant mental absence from her. But this is not a sad moment because this is the most honest and father like he has ever been. The book directly resulted to this moment and completely changed their relationship. It is true her father lived more in his world of fantasy then reality and ended up totally abandoning life altogether, but he was there for her in mysterious ways. In Bechdel’s final words in the Fun Home: “but in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me when I leapt (Bechdel 232).”
The father spent all his time and attention supporting his delusional and helpless fantasy the covered his lie ridden life. Because of this, he was not present to aid Bechdel in her youth. Bechdel gives several instances of her father bing uninterested with her then suddenly becoming angry with her yet she doesn’t let those events solely define him. With a consistent dose of examples that her father is not only distant but also hard to be around she still shrouds him in a more appealing light. She describes him as being misunderstood and even pitiful due to him holding on to a mythical fantasy that isn’t his true life.
Though difficult to describe anything about the bond between her father and her, it is clear that Bechdel and her father were influenced and brought together through the novels they read. It is ironic that these books of fiction seem to be the sole clues to understanding what Bechdel calls “a mythic relationship (Bechdel 4).” Literary references describe her novel influenced family, especially when it came to her father. Her father related and borrowed so many qualities from the characters within novels he read that the comparisons Bechdel shared with those same characters became undeniably similar. After presenting the distanced personality of her dad, Bechdel clarifies that her dad did indeed reach out and offer her advice through what books he bestowed upon her. Bechdel’s literature references aren’t used as a way to describe her dad’s character but a description of the relationship as well as a physical part of the story. The Colette: Earthly Paradise is the most important book she was leant because it symbolized a change in her father and their relationship. Which books she was leant isn’t the only important part of the story. The order of that she reveals each work of literature I think is an overlooked detail even though it expertly decides how the readers get to know her father. The relationship is explained through these works of literature until it ultimately leads to them opening up to each other in the car because of the book: Colette: Earthly Paradise she was given. As I said earlier, Alison Bechdel, uses so many literature references for we can understand the characters and relationships between the characters. But the references are also used because these characters aren’t who they are without the literature that was referenced, and Bechdel and her father’s relationship would be totally different if it wasn’t for one book.