Close Reading Of Alison Bechtel's Fun Home

Close Reading of Fun Home

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel shows us her discovery of her own and her father's homosexuality. This graphic memoir touches on things like homosexuality, family relationships, and suicide. What’s unique about this autobiographical story is that Bechtel used the graphic novel medium to tell her story. When we close read pages fourteen through seventeen in Fun Home we can understand how a Bechdel employs words and graphic devices to allow for specific events. One can also see how the specific content of the pages connects to the book entirely. This part of the graphic novel shows the relationship between Bruce Bechdel and his family and his attempts to cover his homosexuality by making an image of an ideal family, these

ideals are widespread throughout the graphic novel.
When studying page fourteen panel by panel, starting with the panel itself and illustrations within the panel its noticed that Bechdel has extended the top two panels to the width of the page. The lines in the panel show features such as the hair of all family members and the father's pants. Lines are also use to depict the surfaces of the furniture cabinet on the left and the mirror above. The use of three-dimensional figures and objects create depth
Viewing the second panel, we have a family scene depicted. The kids are sitting around watching T.V and from the word balloon you also get the feeling they are annoying each other. “get your stinky feet away from me”(Bechdel 14).Like in panel one, we see details that bring the moment to life. Lines are used to show the backboard of the T.V. shelf. There is a globe on top of a corner table shelving books. Bruce isn't in the same room as the children, the reason of this canl be explained later. Again there is an codependent relationship between the words and pictures because one wouldn't be able to tell what's going on by looking at the just the picture or just reading the words.
Finally, page fourteen ends with the two smaller panels. Both panels depict the complex details of the mirror and wood markings on the table. The transition from one panel to the next is moment-to-moment. The use of moment-to-moment adds the little closure required on the reader's part which means the reader doesn't have to fill in the actions between the panels to a great degree. Once the reader moves on to page fifteen they will notice differences in panels when compared to page fourteen.
The panels on page fourteen are equal in size and move from one scene to another scene. That's because they all have a purpose. On page fifteen in panel one there is the vase with plants. Lines are used to represent the hat and pants Alison Bechdel is wearing as well as the wood forearm of the gun she is playing with. Her father is reading a book called The Nude at the front of the panel. In the next panel you see Alison at the desk trying to shoot pieces of paper and missing as her father looks on annoyed. Lines are used to depict motion. In this case it's the movement of the ball of paper that Alison shoots. The most important aspect of these panels is that they give the reader a look into the relationship between Alison and her father. What's significant about these four panels and the narration is that the narrative describes differences between Alison and Bruce Bechdel and the panels pictures show the differences. The narrative above the first panel says “I was spartan to my fathers Athenian”(Bechdel 15). Spartan means self disciplined or simple, while Athenian is more acquainted with intellectual. Athenian obviously describes Bruce Bechdel, as he is reading a book and spartan describes Allison. There is painting on the wall, the carpet has designs on it, and there is a lamp on the desk. The next panel shows the most obvious differences between Alison and Bruce Bechdel. The narration says “Butch to his nelly”(Bechdel 15). Butch defines the masculine traits that Allison has such as the short hair and her lack of care for having a perfect feminine look. She doesn’t care if her necklines do not match. Nelly on the other hand describes her father's feminine characteristics. Like his need for the necklines to match. And in the last panel the narration reads “Utilitarian to his aesthete.”(Bechdel 15) Alison thinks the details on the chair are useless and make it harder to dust and while Bruce thinks they are appealingly. So the words and the pictures communicate the same ideas.
So the thematic inferences of pages fourteen and fifteen from panel one, on reader gets a sense of the conflict between Bruce Bechdel and his family.

The other family members obviously don't share the same taste for decoration as Bruce Bechdel. The decoration of the home is part of the front that Bruce Bechdel is trying to make. He wants his house to appear perfect and he would rather spend time making it nice than spending time with his family. As I said earlier, the father was placed in a room, separated from the kids in panel two on fourteen. This may suggest that the father is separated from his kids and that Bruce Bechdel would rather spend time working on and cleaning his house stuff rather then with his kids. Alison says “My brothers and I couldn't compete with the astral lamps and girandoles ...”(Bechdel 14). We are told that the fathers priorities are not ordered right. The last panel on page fourteen shows the same concept as the last panel on page fifteen: the fathers care for aesthetic beauty over Alison's carelessness of the aesthetics of the home. Page fourteen's last panel and the four panels on page fifteen show the opposition between Alison and her father. Their interests do not agree and this could be an reason for their stressed relationship. Page fourteen and fifteen allow for insights into the relationship between the family and father and to more extents, the relationship between Alison and Bruce. Pages sixteen and seventeen will go deeper into Bruce Bechdel attempts to show case himself and his family as a ideal

model.
On page sixteen in panel one, Alison is once again doing chores that she doesn't have interest in doing. Complex details are in this panel, the twisted legs of the chair and wood carvings in the dresser. There are no word balloons in panel one, but there is a square box. It's what Bechdel uses to label objects in her pictures. The can of Pledge furniture polish is labeled “Incipient Yellow Lung Disease.”(Bechdel 16) This may imply that Bruce Bechdel has more concern for his furniture then for the health and safety of his children. We then move from one panel to another panel and we see Alison cleaning the decorations hanging form the lamp. The two curved lines depict the movement of the ornaments under which “PLING KLINK” (Bechdel 16) is added for sound. We see the father's shadow in the background which might have something to do with Allison's statement “They were lies.”(Bechdel 16) Then in a scene-to-scene transition Bechdel shows us her father putting on make up in panel three with “Bronzing Stick”(Bechdel16) in an square panel. Once again lines are used to show the hair on the arms and the surface of the bathroom mirror. In the narrative Bechdel says that she began to notice her dad's weird behaviors before she found out the truth about his homosexuality. Allison says “My Father began to seem morally suspect to me long before I knew that he actually had a dark secret” (Bechdel 16) We then come to the last panel on page sixteen. Bruce Bechdel is taking forever to make the family appear “impeccable” (Bechdel 16). Bruce Bechdel isn't worried about the mass itself, but how his family looks when they get there. We Know this because the mother says “ Mass will be over before we get there”(Bechdel 16). This shows us that Bruce is taking a long time to make sure the family looks good. Finally, lets analyze page seventeen. The first panel is filled with details. In the background one can see the stained glass windows of church clerestory. On the left, the vaulting of the roof can be seen. The church goers are dressed very nicely including the Bechdels. We then get a big amount of information about Bruce and his relationship with younger men. “But would an ideal husband and father have sex with teenage boys”(Bechdel 17).This information is quickly moved on from, because we then move in a scene to scene to scene transition where Bechdels are again taking pictures. Bechdel suggests that there was something fake about her family and even her house only resembled a house. Bechdel says that it was more of a museum(Bechdel 17). The museum like evidences can be seen in panel three. Everything looks very nice and shiny. There are two paintings on wall. Lines and gray shadings are used to show shadows and the clean look of all the furnishings and decorations. When Bechdel transitions to panel four she decides to juxtapose her previous views about her family with a normal family scene. Her previous opinion on her family was mocking and analytical, but in panel four she says that her family also did things like many other families. In the scene the kids are playing around, making a mess, asking about scisscors while the parents watch television(Bechdel 17). Bechdel might be sayingthat while her family tried to appear a confident way in public they were actually like any other family in private. One should notice that while square panels were used in every panel of page sixteen they are used once on page seventeen when we get the information about Bruce. This could mean that like the square boxes on sixteen this is a fact.
There are a couple of themes and concepts that emerge on pages sixteen and seventeen. One is that of a hidden truth which resonates on page Bechdel says that the ornaments were embellishments and not in the aesthetic sense, but rather they were lies(Bechdel 16). In the second panel, Bechdel shows her fathers shadow inferring a dark secret and hidden truth. Then there is the second concept of false appearances. This idea first develops in the fourth panel of page sixteen and continues to the third panel of page seventeen. Like it has already been mentioned, the Bechdel family may have tried to keep up a certain appearance in public, but the reader knows that family isn't really perfect and that there are secret problems such the fathers homosexuality, Alison lack of feminine interests, and the strained relationships between Bruce and his wife, Bruce and his family, and Bruce and Alison. The relationship between Bruce Bechdel and his wife aren't uncovered until later in the graphic novel. So, hidden truths and false appearances are the central ideas of pages sixteen and seventeen.
When one actually close-reads a small segment one realizes the large amount of information that can be said about just one segment. Page 14 touched upon the relationship between Bruce Bechdel and his family, while page fifteen gave insights into the father-daughter relationship. Then pages 16 and 17 distributed the hidden truth and the construction of false manifestations. Then there were the the literary and pictorial devices: the extensive use of lines, stretched panels vs. compact panels, codependent picture and writing relationship. These all are techniques Bechdel uses to allow us to better understand the family.