Finding Her True Self
Alison Bechdel wrote Fun Home as a memoir so that people understood the impact her father had on her. She went into great detail in this memoir about her childhood and moments after her father’s death. Which she claims her dad was a suicidal. During the memoir, she describes her relationship with her father. All issues, lessons, and arguments she had with her father are really significant to her. She uses her relationship with her father as the main point in the memoir. Their relationship had its ups and downs but she had very strong feelings for her father. Even though her father did not treat her as a girl most of the time, she managed to get over the fact of her father’s behavior.
Alison’s relationship with her father was crucial for her to discover that she was a lesbian. Her father had so many weird gestures and actions that made her figure out he might be gay. On page 5 of the book, he said: “Wash these old curtains so we can put up the hand-embroidered lace ones I found in Mrs. Strump’s attic” (Bechdel 5). That kind of comments made him seem weird not directly homosexual but not what a heterosexual man should have said. After his death, she found out from her mom that he had affairs with men in the past. This made Alison realize that she
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was not wrong and that she might have been influenced by her dad. Even tough her father was not always the best father to her. He treated her as if she was a boy. Alison made it clear that she sometimes liked the way her father treated her. It made her feel special in some way because it was the only way that she would get his attention. Her father’s attitude towards her was not the best but at least she got her father to be somewhat of involved in her life. Whenever her father died she made it seem like she was careless after all her father had done to her. She was really attached to her father that when he died she even thought he committed suicide just to get out of his emotional problems. She saw her father as a very important role model for her during their time together. Even that she and her father did not get along that well even though she had very strong feelings about him. He was really important to her to the extent that she wrote the memoir based on her relationship with him and all the moments they spent together. On this memoir, she went back in forth in time after her father died she started stating moments she had with him that were significant to her. She explained so many moments that happened before and after his death that had an impact on her that made her what she is today. Her father had a favorite kind of sculpture an obelisk which can be interpreted as a phallic symbol which made him even more suspicious of his homosexuality. Even after his death he got his tombstone to be an obelisk, it may have shown his attraction to this phallic symbols. On page 29 he is showing Allison what an obelisk is and explains to her what meaning and importance this sculpture has to him. “It symbolizes life” (Bechdel 29). In that moment, Alison realized that her father had a lot of homosexual tendencies even referring to obelisks as symbols of life and those being phallic symbols. These started impacting Alison’s point of view and may have influenced on her sexual orientation. It may have taken Alison a while to fully understand who she really was, but when she finally discovered herself as a lesbian.
On page 113 she tells her brother to call her a man's name instead of her name so that she could fit in as a boy, not a girl. “Call me Albert instead of Alison” (Bechdel 113). Whenever her brothers were looking at a naked women calendar Alison had the curiosity and need to look at it. That may have helped her realize that she was actually interested in women, not men. When she left for college she started to experience and putting in place her sexual orientation. She got a girlfriend which actually supported her during hard times in her life like her father’s
death. It made took Alison a little while to figure out what and who she really was, but her father’s way of acting and treating of her while she was growing up had actually a huge impact on her. The way he wanted her to dress. She looks like what people call town boys which are girls that try to dress up and act as if they were boys. When Alison finally told her parents she was a lesbian was a few weeks before her father died. She thought at some point that her father had committed suicide because of her. Whenever he died she seemed very peaceful and normal about the terrible news. Her father had just died and it seemed like she was just careless. When she got home and saw her brother she just hugged him and joked around not even was sad about the recent passing. Alison faced many hard times with her father as a child. Her father treated her as if she was one of her brothers not exactly as a girl that could also have influenced and helped Alison find out who she really was. On some point of her life, she talked to her father about her wanting to be a boy, not a girl and her that told her he actually wanted to be a girl, not a boy. When Alison found out from her mom that her father had affairs with other men and boys she seemed confused. She did not know what to really say about having a cheating father that cheated on her mother with other men. Even that she had so many influential factors from her father she was the one that found herself to be a lesbian. She started relationships with girls and find out she actually enjoyed being with girls. If her father has had the opportunity to express his sexual orientation freely probably he would never have married Alison’s mother in the first place. He could have enjoyed the rest of his life with a man. Alison, on the other hand, had the opportunity to experience her sexuality and discover what she really wanted to be. A lesbian she decided to be. Even if her family was not ok with it, she had made her decision and that was what she really filled comfortable with and wanted for her future. The influence of her father and his sexuality issues is what made Alison what she is nowadays. A lesbian which is proud of herself and is not afraid of showing up her sexuality in front of others. Thanks to her dad and the way, he treated her is what primarily influenced her to be what she is not at days. Even that it took her some time to get over her father’s death. Understanding what he did and why he did it took her a little time but it was worth the time spent waiting and wondering what to do with her life. Now she is a successful comics writer. Even that her father died when she was still in college did not make a difference in what she thought about herself at that point. She was happy being a lesbian. There is nothing wrong with being a lesbian. It is a person’s decision and point of view what really helps them to decide whether express their sexual orientation or not. Other people should not judge anyone by what they think or do we are all different. Alison was influenced by her father’s actions and attitudes that are what made her realize who she really was. Whenever her father first showed her and explained what an obelisk was she did not seem to be interested in it. Instead, she was more interested in how women look and felt attracted to them. She created this memoir so that she will always remember her father and so that other people know how the influence of her father created what she is nowadays. She mainly emphasizes on the relationship she had with her father. That has what helped her discover how she really is. If her father did not treat her the way he did she might have been a totally different person, but his father was a role model for her so she took many of what he had to say very seriously. Work Cited Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Print. "ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies." ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies. Web. 17 Apr. 2016. Nora, Pierre. Between Memory and History: Les Lieux De Memoire. S.l.: S.n., 1989. 7-24. Print.
Andrews begins his narrative by comparing the outlooks upon being transgender to a more normal stance or as his girlfriend (who is bisexual) put it “‘Why can’t you just be gay?’” “‘Why can’t you be normal?’” Being transgender was still a fairly new concept at the time whereas being gay or bisexual was more widely accepted. He affirms the outlook upon being transgender by means of a quote from his current girlfriend “‘Why do you have to mess with this whole transgender thing?’” He
Ten year old Esther Burr creates a cheerful, reminiscent journal entry describing her day out with her father by using sophisticated word choice and an informal sentence structure. Burr’s purpose is to reveal her adoration for her father with flattering words and to also describe her day with such detail that she won’t forget it. She develops a complimentary tone in order to not only have a good memory of her father later in life, but also to appeal to her mother, who regularly reads her diary.
Every family has secrets. Taboo secrets are typically the one's we'd like to keep hidden the most. Unfortunately, what's done in the dark always finds itself resurfacing to the light. In Allison Bechdel "Fun Home", she recollects the memories that impacted her life the most when she was in the stage of discovering her true self. The memories we remember the most tend to play a major role in our life development. For Allison, one well-kept secret that her father contained well from her, unraveled many memories of the truth that laid before her eyes.
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.
Bruce, an “Old Father, Old Artificer,” uses his art form as a way of whitewashing his past memories and faults. The exclamation of the woman shows the extent her father has covered up the truth. He has put many unneeded items and decorations in the house, distracting people that visit. Alison likes things functional, while Bruce likes things very elaborate and over the top, not needed. These decorations have made people confused from what is there and what is not.
... and her father lived a difficult life with their identity. Let us understand where Alison is coming from; here is a woman who has lost the only person that can fully understand what she has lived through. Perhaps this why this scene is set apart, because it resembles the connection that they will share for only a short brief moment. The book itself might be written for her father, who did not get the chance to fully find himself. Whatever the case may be, the scene in the car entitles the themes that jam our brains and make us think. The isolation car scene shows us that even though Alison did not know her father until he sadly died a few weeks later, we can see the parental bond they both share. Both characters needed each other the whole time; it was just ironic that Alison finally got through to her father in the final weeks of his life.
Bechdel decides to live her reality and be her true self. After she reveals this information to her parents, her mother reveals the truth about her father. Bechdel’s father had affairs with many other men throughout his lifetime. Bechdel is shocked and does not understand how her father was able to do that for so long. When Bechdel realizes this, she instantly feels as if now she may be able to connect with her father. Her father was living behind the appearance of the perfect husband and man to hide his actual sexuality of being gay. She feels as if they can connect through their changing sexuality, even though she has decided to come out while her father has
In Fun Home, Alison principally characterizes her desire for a masculine life while trying to find herself in an environment
...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.
Linda Pastan’s poem, “For a Daughter Leaving Home,” displays how a parent views the life of his or her daughter by relating it to their daughter’s first bicycle ride. Her bicycle ride represents the difficult and stressful journey that the girl has embarked on throughout her life. Although the girl is now grown up and ready to start a life of her own, her parent is recalling everything about the girl’s life up to this point.
She later goes on to make a new friend named Greg who is a newly open homosexual and goes to a gay club and dances with him and takes note of “what it is like to act sexually in the world”(P. 202) and then later goes on to become friends with a grouble of transvestites and again helps her gain another view of the world to continually shape her identity and her sense of beauty and love in the world through many different
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...
Femininity is presented in this case through the eyes of a man, which can lead to some inaccuracies and prejudices. This is made clear in the warning given in the Prologue as the miller requests that the reader ‘putte me out of blame’ (put me out of blame) so he is not held responsible for the events that are included in the tale which may cause anger or upset among certain people. In terms of structure, the Old English texts show a narrator - be it first or third person – who believes that their version of events is accurate and can be trusted by readers. However, The Miller’s Tale and the inclusion of a Prologue in particular indicates that the narrator is retelling the story in an extremely subjective manner, which is why Alison is depicted as an untrustworthy character. One of the issues with a subjective narration is the impact this can have on a reader, as this makes women and femininity as a whole appear to be a fatal weakness and something which men should seek to avoid at all
First, she meets a glamorous couple, in which she becomes close with the woman who is named Mrs. Grayson. This couple is later revealed as being Jewish and are kicked out of the hotel, opening Evie’s eyes to reality. She also encounters a soldier who served under her Father during the war, and immediately begins falling for him. But, there are lots of secrets that surround him as he is much older than her, making the girl and her parents fight about youth, adulthood, and the importance of family and trust. Mainly, the book focuses on the theme message of the loss of innocence. Evie, who in the beginning of the book wants to grow up as fast she can, realizes the pureness of youth after being faced with the true reality of adulthood. She experiences this after witnessing a hotel manager throw out Mr. and Mrs. Grayson for being Jewish, in which Evie says “‘They’re leaving in the morning. Peter you don’t understand, the manager. He enjoyed it. I don’t get it’” (Blundell 144). This quote expresses Evie realizing the cruelty of the world. She did learn information about World War II and the Holocaust, but it was different than her actually observing it before her
From reading “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” I understand that Alison feels as if women should always be superior over their husbands. For example, when she says “the woman’s wise whose busy till she’s won the love she wants, or she’ll be left with none”. But since I