Category: Fun Home

Fun Home: a Family tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel, deals with the difficulties that a father and daughter face with sexuality/ being gay. Alison Bechdel realizes that Bruce and her are on opposite side of the Kinsey scale regarding their gender preferences. The story pursuit an understanding of how Bruce and Alison differently perceive their sexual preferences. We can wonder, how does she represent their differences in the graphic memoir ?

Fun Home begins with Alison describing her father’s personality, by narrating how he has an obsession with restoring their old house, and she highlights the fact that he has a special talent with transfigurating objects and decorations. Alison compares Bruce as, “an alchemist of appearance, a savant of surface, a deadalus of decor” (5,6). However, Alison believes that her father uses his “skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things appear to be what they were not” (4,16), and hiding himself behind his dark secret of having sex with underage boys. Therefore, the house’s decorations represent a facade to hide Bruce’s shame. His sexuality is an ongoing topic throughout the graphic novel, we understand that he has a feminine side in the first chapter when he is shown painting in a precise way. His femine side resurface on page 23, his appearance of wearing mini shorts radiates his gender expression.

The end of the first chapter ends dramatically marked by the announcement of Bruce’s death. His grave is represented by an obelisk which during egyptian times represented the living deity, the vitality and immortality of the pharaoh. Ironically, the obelisk has a phallic shape that has a link with Bruce’s sexual preference. The obelisk is important to Bruce because he used to collect them, and according to him it symbolizes life.

Bruce’s sexuality is blurry for Alison, but understanding Bruce’s sexuality begins with understanding its background. Indeed, Alison discovers through a phone call with her mom, her father’s sexuality in which she reveals, “Your father has had affairs with other men” (5,58), and explains that “he was molested by a farm hand when he was younger” (6,58). According to Alison, Bruce drew a line between reality and fiction but it was a blurry one, and his library represents the blurry line that separates reality and fiction. In the fourth chapter entitled after Proust’s novel, “In The Shadow Of Young Girls In Flower”, Bruce is pictured wearing a bikini and Alison views her father as a sissy because of his love of flowers. The blurry line drawn by Bruce shows its inability to distinguish reality from fiction, he can see the beauty in a flower but not in his own children just like Proust in his book. Although the numerous signs that determines Bruce’s sexuality, he stays closeted (1,228). This suppression might explain his abusive behavior he had when Alison and her brother were younger.

Fun Home is also the story of Alison coming of age understanding her sexuality and embracing her lesbian side. While Bruce led his life hidden from his true self, Alison quite awake was fully aware of her identity. In her early thirteen’s, Alison questioned her sexuality after reading the word lebian in a dictionary. She realized her affinity for men’s clothing before she even realized that she identifies as a lesbian.

Searching her sexuality was part of Alison’s childhood, at nineteen it was a moment of realization for her after reading a book in the library. In college, she read a series of “Word Is Out” books filled with interviews of homosexual people. She made many researches and read many books on homosexuality throughout her life. When she was finally decided to take a step further into affirming her true identity, Alison’s sent a letter to her parents where she is coming out as a lesbian (1,58), even though she considered her sexuality being more hypothetical because she hasnt gotten any experiences yet. However, her parents’ reaction wasn’t what she had hoped for after exchanging letters with her mom. At this point in time, her mother decides to reveal to Alison the truth about her father’s sexuality over the phone. Alison feels like the bombshell dropped by her mother shaded her coming out proclamation. However, letting it out allowed Alison to become more open with both herself and others regarding her gender identity. She is then capable of discovering her sincere sexuality by being in public relationships and experience with women.

Although Alison could successfully transition into living her new life being a lesbian, she struggles to understand her father’s gender identity. When Alison was younger, Bruce forced her to enforce her feminine side as a way of suppressing his own demons concerning his shame over his sexual identity. The differences drawn between both characters truly reflects modern day issues with affirming your own sexuality. We can notice different behaviors regarding being homosexual between Alison and Bruce. While Alison is involved and researches about her sexuality, Bruce attempted to conceal his homosexuality and keep it a secret even though he tends to have more feminine side sometimes. The story of Bruce’s shame, explains how hiding that shame can in flip create complex and self-negative behaviors. Towards the end of the book, Bruce exhibits to Alison his desires to become a female. While she is happy that they have this connection because she always wanted to be a boy, he feels ashamed. This interaction embodies the chasm between father and daughter’s approaches to gender identification.

It is undeniably that clothing and material surface plays an imperative role in the development of understanding one’s self since it reinforces gender binaries that ultimately dictate how we interact within the wider world. Undoubtedly, Alison Bechdel’s premise in her family tragicomic, Fun Home, is to simply understand herself through copious amounts of literature references and discourses regarding gender dynamics. As Bechdel interrogates identities that sit beyond the constraints of society, her intertexts allow her to navigate within a ‘binaried’ world implemented primarily by her father, Bruce. For instance, Bechdel examines the archetypes of traditional gender roles through clothing which portrays a framed perception of gender alluding to hetronormative standards. Similarly to how Queen Theory continually questions the normalization of gender roles, Bechdel does the same through a sartorial self-framing of a fragmented childhood and emerging adult aware of her sexual orientation as a lesbian. Just as the materiality and in between substance of texts creates discourse, the material world within Fun Home are intertexts of concrete binaries, gender expression, and archetypes involving social constructs that inform the life of Alison Bechdel and her experiences. Living in a household where binary restraints are enforced in order to conform to an ideology that frowns upon gender expression and differing sexual orientations, clothing and other material objects become a means of identity formation, protection, and social distinction.

Materiality becomes a focus within the realms of Bechdel’s childhood since the beautification of surface refers to Bechdel’s relationship with Bruce which informs her gender identity. From a young age, Bechdel casts a moral judgment of her father, knowing that he’s concealing many truths while exposing numerous lies in order to, “Make things appear to be what they were not (16).” With this in mind, readers can see the process of gender socialization which invokes discourses pertaining to the surface properties of women and men. For instance, one of the many texts littered in Fun Home is The Addams Family which refers to Bechdel’s feelings of isolation from the rest of collective suburbia, as well as, moments of connection within the skewed Bechdel household. However, looking beyond the surface of Bechdel’s awareness of her unconventionality, she also states when referencing her first-grade school photo in comparison to Wednesday Addams, “Wearing a black dress my father had wrestled me into, I appear to be in mourning (35).” Apart from the fact that Bechdel and her father are clear inverses of one another, Burce’s fixation on Bechdel’s exterior of formal dresses, barrettes, and displaying the ideals of a little girl her age teaches Bechdel the appeal of surface properties within the context of gender. Alison is taught to embrace womanhood through aesthetics which ultimately fuels a disconnect between her environment, sexual orientation, gender, and ironically relationship with her father. The disconnect is represented through the text of Proust, referencing how Bechdel is an “invert,” “the opposite of sissy,” to which she adds, “It’s imprecise and insufficient defining the homosexual as a person whose gender expression is at odds with his or her sex ().” Clearly, Allison and Bruce start to unravel their subjectivity in mourning of their loss selves, trying to carry societal burdens and each other up even though doing gender had become unavoidable because of the social consequences of sex category membership. Hence the reason why Bechdel considers her father’s death “queer business” since it was cryptic but also because Bruce’s expression of his identity and sexual orientation was intentionally withdrawn from his life earsing his indivdual footprint (57). In Bechdel’s case, gender-specific clothing and her image was a regulation disclosed by her father which made her and Bruce both sufferers of institutional narratives.

Looking at the construction of Bechdel’s social individuality, readers can see this is defined by her social potion, “which depends for its existence on a social world ().” Clearly, Bechdel’s quest revolves around figuring out these technicalities of social roles and how certain experiences as a child have made her receptive to certain behavioral norms. Ultimately, Bechdel is a subject of conflicting social norms which she eventually becomes conscious about as we read past, present and future representations of Alison Bechdel. This becomes quite apparent, when Bechdel and Bruce decide to eat a diner when they encounter, “ a most unsettling sight” of a non-conforming female in men’s attire and opposing the essential nature of gender. Bechdel states,

I didn’t know there were women who wore men’s clothes and had men’s haircuts… But like a traveler in a foreign country who runs into someone from home– someone they’ve never spoken to but know by Sight–I recognized her with a surge of Joy (119)

Notably, the individual impacts Bechdel and her father but for very different reasons, for Bechdel, it is a vision of a future and for Bruce the experience is haunting. Bruce even retorts back, “Is that what you like to look like (Ibid)?” to which Bechdel denies solemnly in order to protect herself. However, protection and conforming to a social script go hand and hand with one another, thereby marking the beginnings of Bechdel’s crisis of identity. Subsequently, encounters of gender only become more complex than a binary opposition of a good daughter and bad father, hence the reason why Bechdel needs to understand her father through the outlet of literature. Furthermore, Bechdel’s social individuality as a child seems to only weaken, since many of these intertexts were socialising influences that created implicit understandings of the behaviours of traditional men and women which ultimately shape their identity. In spite of this, our physical bodies do not always determine what course our lives as gendered people will take enforcing the idea that certain instionalised frameworks inform physical features of social setting ().

Part of social distinction, involves the gender binaries created for men and women which Fun Home deconstructs to what is natural, biological, or essential? The aspect of role conflict is showcased through Bechdel’s role-playing with Beth where they discover Bruce’s old clothes and create the personas of Billy Mckean and Bobby McCool (183). The embodiment of extreme forms of masculinities, marks an understanding of how material operates in the gendered world, to which the sex division of male and female bodies is entirely on a biological account(). In addition, on a car ride to the movies Bechdel and Bruce talk about this precise issue of the identification of gender and how it provides a resource to an infinite amount of discourses. One of which is the discourse of paternity, which Fun Home reveals through the intertextuality of Ulysses. Part of Alison’s quest of finding herself is to make sense of the discourse of paternity and through its deconstruction of sex segregation do readers begin to see the mutual intellectual respect between a father and daughter. The destabilization of the traditional archetypes of son and father demonstrates the ways how Bechdel implements centrifugal forces to decipher her father, hence the traditional narrative of gender.

Within Fun Home, readers see how a person’s gender is not simply an aspect of what one is, but, more fundamentally something that one does which disrupts Bechdel’s identity (). The tragicomic’s inclusion of gendered clothing and encouragement of traditional ideologies through aesthetics poses serious dilemmas for Alison Bechdel which ultimately makes her rethink her childhood in a fragmented fashion. The use of material both liberates and sets boundaries, creating a complicated relationship between normative expectations and welcoming Bechdel’s identity expression as a lesbian. Hence, the material world becomes a means of identity formation, protection, and social distinction which appear in Bechdel’s relationship with her father Bruce. Similar to how a quilt is comprised of an assortment of varying fabrics, Bechdel’s divergent experiences show a trail of her perceptiveness of gender that ultimately plays a role in the stitching and sewing of her evolving selfhood.

Endearing in many ways, Alison Bechdel’s autobiography, Fun Home, shows readers that stories, metaphors, and archetypes can allow us to comprehend a person’s troubles. Allison’s characters embody transformative aspects where they become ciphers and reflections of people living in the real world. Furthermore, Allison’s recollections of a family unit that was physically, intellectually, and emotionally monopolized by her father, Bruce Bechdel, echoes fictional allusions of an unconventional storyline as a way to broadcast multiple perspectives. For instance, Camus’ ‘A Happy Death’ and ‘The Myth of Sphsius,’ showcases different prospects of death and its questionable absurdity at the time of Bruce’s theorized suicide. On the other hand, the workings and life of F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrate domestic bliss and the idealized life of being married which captures the thoughts of a young Bruce during the military. Despite Fitzgerald’s work incorporated into the storyline, the play ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ more clearly represents married life between Allison’s mother, Helen, and her father, Bruce. In a place where their marriage is thwarted, Helen becomes a shell of her former youthful glow from the animosity held by Bruce. Sometimes, these fictional illusions offer Alison comfort and an optimistic perspective on her skewed sense of the nature of her household, with comparisons from works such as ‘The Adam’s Family’ and ‘The Wind and the Willows.’ Through the copious observations of her family’s flaws and moments of connection, readers begin to understand Bechdel’s perspective that regardless of how truthful a text may be, an authentic reality offers more agony and contentment.

These fictional allusions, however, do exhibit tender breakthroughs between sexuality and the simple comforts between Allison and Bruce’s relationship. For instance, part of the graphic novel divulges into Alison’s exploration of her sexual identity and at times, possibly crosses the boundary of fixated gender/heteronormativity. Alison’s sexual awakening as a lesbian reveals a fictional allusion surrounding sexual freedom when she takes a college course covering James Joyce’s ‘Ulysses.’ When Bruce offers Allison the book, ‘Earthly Paradise,’ it allows her to read, ‘Flying,’ which is a symbolic reading of Allison and Bruce’s unspoken connection regarding homosexuality. Although their natural cores and disposition foil with one another, their literary allusions offer great meaning in one another which is said at the beginning of the graphic novel and reiterated at the very end. In chapter 7, Allison states, “What if Icarus hadn’t hurtled into the sea? What if he’d inherited his father’s inventive bent? What might he have wrought? He did hurtle into the sea, of course. But in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me when I leapt ().” The symbolism of Daedalus, Icarus, and the Minotaur not only reveals the tragic narrative of Bruce labeling himself as a monster due to his homosexuality/bisexuality but how Allison’s character is a juxtaposition of her father. The Greek myth is probably the truest fictional allusion of Alison’s relationship with her father since when Bruce ‘fell,’ he was there to reach for Allison when she decided it was time to ‘fly,’ Without Bruce and capturing the essence of Alison’s complex past, it would never have been possible for Allison to come into her skin and ‘fly with wings’, garnering her coming of age, openness, and acceptance of reality.

The path from one’s childhood to their adulthood has never been a narrow, easy path, it is one filled with numerous obstacles that can make it feel like your entire world is collapsing around you, while providing you no way out. This is prevalent in Alison Bechdel’s, “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” and Phoebe Gloeckner’s “The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures”. Bechdel’s graphic novel memoir centers around her relationship with her emotionally detached father, Bruce. The author specifically focuses on the events surrounding the day of Bruce’s death while she was in her freshman year of college. Alison’s childhood of abandonment, mixed with the trauma of her father’s unclear death that she marks as a suicide, all play a significant role in the various shifts in her life. Gloeckner’s graphic novel is a collection of diary entries written by Minnie, a fifteen-year-old girl living with her careless mother and little sister in 1970s San Francisco. The story centers around Minnie after she loses her virginity to her mother’s middle-aged boyfriend, Monroe Rutherford. The author highlights the various instances in which the character deal with understanding the complexity of her sexuality while raising herself.

The abandonment and trauma experienced by both Minnie and Alison are crucial in being the catalyst towards their journey of becoming. The authors illustrate them finding what coping mechanism works best for them as they go from their search for affection from their parental figures, using literature and their writing as an outlet to seeking mental health help

The abandonment Alison experienced in her childhood due to the detachment of her father does not push her away as one would believe but instead causes her to yearn for his physical affection even more. Bechdel makes sure to acknowledge the importance of this feeling right from the panels on the first page. “It was a discomfort well worth the rare physical contact, and certainly worth the moment of perfect balance when I soared above him” (Bechdel, pg. 3). Bechdel introduces her father as a secretive man incapable of expressing any form of affection and tended to make Bechdel feel inadequate in various ways. By the first page, she is quick to distinguish the type of relationship she had with her father and establishing it as a her normal. They way she fondly touches upon that memory lets the readers know how much she cherished it as it truly was so rarely ever experienced. Bechdel also recalls the memory of how although her father was the leading cause of her fear in life, he was also the one that gave her the kind of warmth and affection that she craved. “My mother must have bathed me hundreds of times. But it’s my father rinsing me off with the purple metal cup that I remember most clearly” (Bechdel, pg. 22). Bathing must have been a particularly pleasant activity in Bechdel’s life and because she shared very little moments like that with her father, it became a memory that stuck out. In both instances of rare affection for young Bechdel, she is seen saying “Again”. This could be referring to the rare warmth Bruce gave her through those action followed by the cold absence of when he would fail to show it. In Minnie’s life, her affection is non-existent with her mother and so when Minnie is seen exploring her sexuality she finds herself mixing up the desire for familial love with sexual love. The misplacement of Minnie’s affection becomes her way of dealing with her mom not taking on the role of a mother like Minnie hoped (Taylor). “I wasn’t really sure whether I wanted him or anyone else to fuck me but I was afraid to pass up the chance because I might never get another” (Gloeckner, pg.6). Minnie came from a broken family and so she searched for validation from her mother but instead got the opposite. Her irresponsible mother would make her feel inadequate and incapable of being loved a number of times throughout the story. Minnie finds validation in Monroe as well as the affection she was deprived of for so many years. Out of fear of never being enough and finding love she turns to the arms of an older man to provide her with that comfort. In another instance Minnie’s mother proposes that Monroe marries Minnie because he had slept with her. “Oh yes, my loves, he loves me, he wants to take care of me, even my momma wants what’s best for me now at the end of this long painful road I shall finally have my warm happiness, the pink glowing love that I needed so badly!” (Gloeckner, pg. 254). Minnie feels herself find the affection she so desperately ached for from both adults and so a part of her subconscious hopes that it was actually real. It kills two birds with one stone, as Minnie’s mother is finally seeing her as adequate to approve of something in her life while also having the certainty that Monroe will protect her from harm’s way. Both characteristics that are likely to be identified amongst parental figures so Minnie mistakes the joy of finally having a parent with the traumatic reason behind suggesting marriage.

When Bechdel discusses the memories that she believed foreshadowed her father’s eventual passing, the audience sees a peak of interest in literature and writing into journals. “My realization at nineteen that I was lesbain came about in a manner consistent with my bookish upbringing” (Bechdel, pg. 74). She turned to books as they openly answered the many questions her parents avoided answering or even acknowledging as it shatter the image they had built for themselves. Bechdel used literature to cope with the emotions and feelings she was forced to restrain during her childhood as it would upset the image that Bruce constructed. By reading she could define her sexual identity, which was the opposite of what Bruce had done and so that led to his eventual death meanwhile Bechdel had rewritten her story, not it being one with less deadly secrets. Coping through literature is evident again when Bechdel began writing into a diary, throughout the story, the audience is made aware of the notes Bruce had been making into the books he read. “I wish I could say I’d accepted his book, that I still had it, that he’d underlined one particular passage” (Bechdel, pg. 47). Bechdel seems to hold on to the belief that Bruce’s death was a suicide that may have been building up through the underlined sentences that considers suicide as a logical option. Bechdel wrote about her day like Bruce wrote about the corpses that came into the Fun Home. Only Bechdel had more freedom on getting her thoughts across, proved even further through this memoir written by her years later to acknowledge and understand how it all came to be. Minnie relies on her diary entries to also cope with her upcoming; upon initialing a sexual relation with her father, she is unable to openly share her desires and accounts with other individuals. Therefore, she found warmth within her typewriter and physical diary pages where she would spill her heart out. “One night I had a dream that my stepfather found the diary, and I woke up full of fear at 3:00 am and destroyed the little book” (Gloeckner, pg. 13). Minnie turns to unraveling her earliest secret of being attracted to a girl in her class through the pages of the diary. She may have not had a proper understanding of sexual identity quite yet but knew her parents discovering it would be her worst fear. The feeling that Minnie could not turn to her family with her doubts caused her so much inner turmoil, all located within her diary pages. The act of destroying the diary felt like she had been cheated of love and lost a part of herself. Minnie therefore commits herself to continue her future diaries no matter how dark of a secret she included in it. In the epilogue, Minnie isn’t shown to have come a long way since her shame of sharing herself so openly. “A brand-new diary is like a brand-new life, and I’m ready to leave this one behind me” (Gloeckner, pg. 285). This proves that Minnie definitely saw the diary to being an embodiment of her soul, existing and aware but unable to be shared. Minnie used the diary to make sense of her sexuality from when she first explored it with Monroe to when she decides she does not need his validation and realizes that the pages are what helped her come to that conclusion. She feels better about where she ended up and the diary passages serve as proof of that.

From a young age Bechdel finds herself to be diagnosed with ‘Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” (OCD), this is likely caused by her father’s tendencies to demand perfection from all his surroundings. “The explanation of repressed hostility made no sense to me. I continued reading, searching for something more concrete” (Bechdel, pg. 139). Bechdel is never able to explain the fear, anger and confusion she feels living in an unpredictable household due to her father’s rash actions. She reads in the book that Bechdel was holding back her hostile thoughts thereby causing her to find other ways to express herself. This self-censorship was probably caused by early incidents when Bruce gave very little space for error in young Bechdel’s life, from the incident regarding the lamp to her mother establishing a rule to never make a comment about their father’s appearance (Bechdel, pg. 18-19). The entire situation results in her being hyper aware of her surroundings by building a routine of things like having an exact way of undressing herself, lining up her shoes and kissing every single one of her stuffed animals (Bechdel, pg. 137). When Minnie was struggling with the chaos of her household and personal life she is seeks out help from her psychiatrist, Dr Alfred Wollenberg. “He promised he would not tell my mother, but the reason he gave is that it would not help me” (Gloeckner, pg. 221). Minnie looks into finding alternative methods of understanding the numerous confusions that make her feel so self-destructive and angry. The promise of secrecy from the wrath of her mother plays the same role that she had given her diary, but through the psychiatrist she was getting well needed advice back. The response allows her to understand her circumstance and plays a role in her journey to becoming. This is kind of evident again when she seeks help from a suicide helpline, the service provided was not helpful in any way or form but knowing she seeked help gives both the audience and Minnie the idea that she wants to live, but clearly relaying on others to walk her through it is not working therefore she finds the desired validation for her mental health through her own self.

The authors highlight that trauma and abandonment are severely damaging to a child’s life asn they are more prone to experience it long term as they are so much more impressionable. The authors show themselves transition into their stages of becoming through their desire for parental affection, literature and writing as an outlet and seeking mental health support. They make it evident through both authors attention towards their father figures influence into understanding their identities and desires. Then Bechdel uses her father books to understand the secrets of bother their sexualities while Minnie used her diary to understand the secrets of her sexual adventures. Then lastly, Bechdel is diagnosed with OCD due to her trauma and Minnie found herself coping through therapy and other types of support.

Out of all the mental health struggles that Alison goes through throughout Fun Home, I wish she would have explained her obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) more. She later refers to it as her “obsessive-compulsive year”, and she is never shown to seek treatment for it through medicine or therapy, so it was not a major part of her life; but as a person with autism and OCD symptoms that I struggle with myself, I wanted to see more how this affected her. From pages 135 to 145, Alison talks about various obsessions and compulsions that she developed and how they affected her 10-year-old self. She avoids even numbers and multiples of 13, and she feels a sort of invisible substance all around her that prevents her from going through doorways. The most focus is on her journal, and how she begins to write the phrase “I think” between her words, so much so that she creates a shorthand symbol for it. She then begins to write the symbol on top of people’s names and pronouns, calling it an “amulet” that warded evil away from its subjects. She even begins to write the symbol over entire diary entries.

I’d like to specifically focus on page 148, and how Alison’s OCD affects her here. Bruce shows her the dead body of a child about the same age and size as her who died from a broken neck in a car crash. You then see Alison’s journal recalling the event. Her “I think” symbol is scrawled over individual words, along with drawing it over the whole entry over and over, obscuring most of the account. What I think is most striking is the surprisingly innocuous content of the entry. The first reads: “We watched cartoons. Dad showed us the dead people. They were cut up and stuff. Mother took John to a party.” The second reads: “[…] John + I looked at the Sears catalog. Dad had the funerals today. Mother went to the funeral home.” She then draws a smiley face.

As mentioned often throughout the book, the Bechdel children were given an extremely warped perception of death by growing up in a funeral home, but you can tell that this specific instant was particularly traumatizing to young Alison. For one, the child was her age – and, of course, at this point in her life she was already being hindered by her own anxiety and OCD. But I think what is most telling is that even in her adult life, Alison has nothing deeper to say about this instant besides “my diary entries for that weekend are almost completely obscured.” Unlike the usual retrospective, sarcastic Alison that has some sort of humorous way to frame even the saddest events in her life, it seems that in this moment she is unable to reflect with clearer hindsight on her emotional state at the time. The way that this particular moment in the book is so bluntly stated despite its emotional impact makes me feel even more sad for Alison and her childhood.

To be more technical on why this specific set of panels is meaningful to me, I’ll break it down further. First, there’s the impact on the reader seeing a dead child. Of course, it’s just a drawing, and a cartoonish one at that, but you don’t see many drawings of dead children on the regular. Secondly, you don’t just hear about Alison’s “I think” symbol – you see it, and you see the way it’s scribbled over and over, obscuring her whole journal entry. I was extremely disappointed when “I think” was not incorporated into the musical at all, as it seems that you could easily make a song around a repeating, “I think” lyric. Anyway, you can see how this symbol overtakes her journal. It is integrated over or between most of the words, much more prevalent than you might think if you just were to read her description of the journal rather than the journal itself. And, as previously stated, the bluntness and literalness of the captions give you the uneasy feeling that this event still troubles Alison – or worse, she doesn’t realize how much it actually affected her. I wanted to pick a set of panels centered on Alison’s OCD because I relate to it, but doing page 148 specifically has left me thinking about what situations from Alison’s childhood are still sitting, unaddressed, troubling her in the back of her mind.

Fun Home: a family tragicomic is a graphic memoir written by Alison Bechdel. This graphic memoir is about Bechdel’s childhood from 8 years old to her early 20s and during the process, she discovered her sexual orientation/own lesbian sexuality, as well as some dark secrets of her father(Bruce). When people first see Fun Home, would probably assume Bechdel using the memoir to reveal the story of her childhood and her relationship with her father but the memoir is more than that. The graphic memoir fun Home perfectly shows the effect of long-term repression, the way that disgrace can drive an individual to hide that disgrace and hiding that disgrace can potentially drive individuals to the extreme and harm themself. One article, “The Father, the daughter” stated Bechdel’s used the memoir to demonstrate homosexuality is discriminated against and is not recognized by society during that era. Both, Fun Home and “The Father, the Daughter” present the idea of people associate homosexuals equally to shame, fear, and self-loathing and gays are severely impacted.

“The Father, the Daughter” was reviewed by Anne Elizabeth Moore. Moore stated Fun Home isn’t what the title appears to demonstrate a wacky, humorous sitcom loaded up with characters as interesting and recognizable as the cast of her animation strip Dykes to Watch Out For. But more of how homosexuals have to pretend to be normal in front of peoples and hide their true inner feeling and want because of society associate homosexuals equivalent to shame, fear and self-loathing. Moore also stated the success of Fun Home was very difficult and unusual. Females had been very restricted in the American comics industry. Bechdel’s self-portraying story gives an approving, consoling, practically moving model for retelling the tales of our pansy fathers, filthy uncles, limp-wristed more youthful siblings, quirky. This unique strategy of writing method allowed Bechdel to achieve outstanding success in the American comics industry.

In the graphic memoir, I had read from Fun home, which consisted of the first two chapters. Bechdel consistently used Bruce’s behavior to prove evidence of how Bruce tried to hide the shame of being gay throughout the memoir. Alison portrays her dad’s steady adorning of the family house utilizing an analogy that astoundingly catches the dynamic of suppression and fixation: she considers her to be as being both Daedalus and the Minotaur – both the Greek fashioner who made the inevitable maze to house the horrendous beast and the beast itself. Thusly of seeing things, the over-the-top practices are a frantic method to stow away and control the beast an individual sees inside oneself, yet they never take out that individual’s feeling that the person truly is on the most fundamental level a beast. Thus even as the practices offer control, they are additionally a jail (and the ‘beast’ can at present now and again escape, as both Bruce’s furies and issues with a portion of his male high school understudies verify).

In the graphic memoir titled Fun Home, by Allison Bechdel, sexual self-discovery is one of the criteria for the development of the main character. Furthermore, Bechdel depicts the plethora of factors that are pivotal in the shaping of who she is before, during and after her sexual self-development. Bechdel’s anguish and pain begins with all of her accounts that she encountered at home, with her respective family member – most importantly her father – at school, and the community she grew up within. Bechdel’s arduous process of her queer sexual self-development is throughout the novel as complex as her subjectivity itself. Main points highlight the difficulties behind which are all mostly focused on the dynamics between her and her father. Throughout the novel, she spotlights many accounts where she felt lost and ashamed of her coming out and having the proper courage to express this to her parents. Many events and factors contributed to this development that many seem to fear.

In her novel, Bechdel’s complex sexual self-development is a power struggle for her to figure out and acknowledge her sexual orientation. One can simply observe the pain and struggle Bechdel encountered in her process of self-development, especially in one of her monologues when she discusses the impact of finding out about her father’s homosexual ways in his past. She states, “Only four months earlier [to her father’s suicide], I had made an announcement to my parents, ‘I am a lesbian’ but it was a hypothesis so thorough and convincing that I saw no reason not to share it immediately… My homosexuality remained at that point purely theoretical, untested hypothesis” (Bechdel 58). After receiving the news that her father was a closeted homosexual, Allison’s sexual self-discovery completely turned on her in a way that just caused confusion in her journey. This greatly exhibits the complexity that was continuingly lingering in her queer sexual self-development.

Another factor that was critical in shaping who Allison Bechdel were the dynamics and ideals present in her household. As she depicts it, her household was a very tumultuous one that was most highlighted by her relationship with her father, Bruce Bechdel. Throughout most of the novel, Allison exhibits her father’s volatile temper, which contributed to his violent sprees of anger, but what proved to play one of the biggest impacts on Allison was the distance Bruce appeared to create. At one point Bechel states, “It was a vicious circle, though. The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew. Our home was like an artists’ colony. We ate together, but otherwise were absorbed in our separate pursuits. And in this isolation our creativity took on an aspect of compulsion” (Bechel 134). Allison here depicts of the dysfunctional culture that was constantly present in her household, but most importantly the impact this had on her. With all of the turmoil constantly occurring in her household, it did not allow for a comfortable and delightful environment especially in the development of Bechdel’s identity. To continue on the dynamics between Alison and her father, one of the biggest factors to her development and the complexity of her subjectivity can be attributed to her father’s insecurity in his own sexuality.

As aluded to before, Bruce and Alison’s relationship experienced great hardship as a result of Bruce’s insecurity about his own sexual identity. An example of when Alison believed that Bruce would express his own insecurity on the time when they went to a wedding and the apparel Bruce selected for Alison to wear, stating, “Not only were we inverts, we were inversions of one another. While I was trying to compensate for something unmanly in him… He was attempting to express something feminine through me. It was a war of cross-purposes, and so doomed to perpetual escalation” (Bechdel 98). Alison is elaborating on a perception that perhaps her father wanted to use her as a way of achieving something he could not or was afraid to through himself. Alison here is expressing how her father would select and present her clothes and accessories that would appear he wished or wanted to wear. Immediately following this encounter, Alison highlights a time when he wanted her to a necklace and the dialogue between the two were sole Bruce saying, “What’re you afraid of? Being beautiful? PUT IT ON, goddamn it!” and Alison retorted by yelling, “Leave me ALONE!” (Bechdel 99). Here Bruce is antagonizing Alison to just put on the following necklace and Alison is showing to be very hesitant to the following. One can sense the anguish that she is experiencing through the impact of her retort. Alison depicts another time when she found pictures of her father that all appeared opposite to the sexuality he appeared to have. Photos for example of him in a women’s bathing suite highlight this idea. The opposition that arose between the two and difference in appearance seemed to play a pivotal role in her self-discovery. Alison even discuses the impact this has on her subjectivity as a whole.

Alison makes it quite apparent throughout the novel that the relationship between her and her father was on that played a critical role in not only her queer self-development but subjectivity as whole by itself. She displays he input on the following idea by stating, “Between us lay a slender demilitarized zone – o

What aspects can define what Popular Literature is? How is control a crucial aspect of Popular Literature? Popular literature is intended for large audiences and requires a certain level of engagement and entertainment. It is accompanied by many different aspects that can help showcase a good understanding of the story. Fun Home: A Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel published in 2006, surrounds the story of her childhood and youth by focusing on her complex upbringing and relationship with her father, Bruce. In addition to the main premise, it explores the death of her father and the struggles she faces with discovering her own sexuality. As readers, this book allows us the opportunity to read this text as a graphic memoir. It was created by the survivor of the past, as it is written and read in the first person. This book is a very prominent example that clearly defines what Popular Literature is. Thus, it accompanies many important narrative techniques. Popular Literature is often surrounding itself with different themes and genres. A notable technique is control. Control can be defined as having the power to influence people’s ways. A controlling person can often be defined as someone who is isolating themselves or others from secrets or the things around them. Through Fun Home, control is seen as a crucial aspect in Popular Literature, which is demonstrated through, Alison’s perfectionism with the life around her, Bruce’s motives towards his family, and how readable this novel is for its audience.

Fun Home itself is a controlling text. It appears to have very manipulative way of using its techniques to tell the story. This one theory directly links to the idea that the author retains supreme control. For this novel, Alison Bechdel is the primary controller for how this story comes across. When reading this book and learning about Bechdel’s characteristics, it is frequently notable that she may have some type of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) tendencies. As a child, she tends to have to be in control of her emotions and the way she acts around her father. She feels she had to be or dress in a certain way. This could have also stemmed from her mother and how she told Bechdel and her sibling how to act, specifically around her father. “No comments on his appearance. Is that understood?…Good, bad it doesn’t matter” (19). From the beginning, it is noted that she was always taught to be a certain way. As she grows older, she must be her own controlling person, for herself. We see some sort of calendar list on her wall in her room, presenting some behaviours that she has adopted to feel this sort of control in her life. “On my wall calendar, I set myself deadlines by which to abandon specific compulsions, one at a time” (149). She has written specific goals to achieve, for example, “Toss shoes” and “Don’t fold towels funny” (149). The one that stands out the most is, “Don’t worry. You’re safe” (149), which makes the reader think about how capable she is to control her life in, her own way. Bechdel tries to control her evident uncontrollable life with these perfectionist type strategies, like making lists. As it worsens, it causes some chaos to come about. Even in her own diary, she may have the potential to have errors that could infringe her controlled structure, that she has already built up and around herself. However, Bechdel admits in the narrative, that she does not have the means to describe the entirety of the facts. Being the author, she can control the sequence of events being persuaded on paper, but this also means she is not the only person that controls the real narrative which reflects the idea of control as this narrative’s major technique.

Bruce, Bechdel’s father, was shown to be a very big influence throughout her childhood or so she says. He can simply be described as the man of the house, who in a sense controls everything that surrounds the family. Thus, being the controller allows him to hide his truths. He is seen to be the main discipliner and the one that makes all the decisions. This quote “What are you doing? That’s the canary-colored caravan! Here, I’ll do the rest in yellow and your blue side will be in the shadow” (130-131), is an example on how Bruce will take matters into his own hands and how he will take things from others to make it the way he wants. What was once just an innocent girl colouring, turned into a disaster that Bruce, now controls the outcome of. These types of fatherly techniques can be described by two different motives. These two motives are engaged throughout Bechdel’s childhood and allows the reader for a better understanding of the characters. Firstly, he deals with reconciliation in relation to Bechdel. Throughout the novel, as readers we see a type full circle effect that occurs. Bechdel always wants to forgive Bruce and in the end, always tries to get his attention. “I showed [my poem] to my father, who improvised a second stanza on the spot. Limp with admiration, I added his lines to my typescript” (129), is a great example on how Bechdel will change things just to please him. However, this also shows just how Bruce is in full control of this relationship he has with Bechdel, because it seems like it always up to him what happens. The second motive is his abusive nature which demonstrates his control over all his kids including Bechdel. He is always hitting them or throwing things out of anger, but it is usually because of the littlest things. The lamp incident for example, shows the type of discipline Bruce practices. “How did this vase get so close to the edge of the table” (18), is the question he asks to his children that supposedly had nothing to do with it. Bruce does not believe them and is shown hitting them, as they plead that they had done nothing wrong. This is the type of acts Bruce demonstrates to show that he controls what the family can and cannot do. He is always constantly fixing the house, whether that be outside or inside. No matter how perfect he claims to be, it cannot change his true desires.

It is a common factor that any novel must entice the reader so that it can actually be read or understood. Perhaps, Fun Home uses that search for control as its most recognizable technique. It uses its quality to help define its readability. A good Popular Literature book must be compelling hence why this specific book is such a ‘page turner’ that people cannot put down. With its use of illustrations, it gives off a child-like atmosphere for a very adult like story and novel. As mentioned above, this novel is based on Bechdel’s life, which makes it very compelling to the reader. However, Bechdel uses some additional techniques that benefit the story. She uses her ability to tell us just enough about a certain topic or about something, that will intrigue us. Once we are intrigued, we continue to read more to satisfy our interest and curiosity. This technique ultimately controls whether we continue to read the book or not. If it is done well, the reader will not catch onto the technique and just continue it out of pure intentions. An example of this in the novel, is when we are introduced to the idea of Bruce having secrets. As readers, we do not know exactly what it is and how it influences Bechdel and her life. With this little information, it raises many questions that are worth discovering. What is the secret? How does it impact Bechdel’s life? Is it true? When a book creates this atmosphere to raise questions, it is controlling the way you think which makes it a readable book. In addition, the author will feel satisfied, as his or her story has done exactly what it was meant to do; make a gripping and entertaining novel.

The answer to the question stated above, how is control a crucial aspect of Popular Literature? can be answered through different and complex techniques. A Popular Literature novel like Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, is a perfect example on how control is very important in Popular Literature novels. Three pivotal influences in the book, that influences this idea of control are Alison and how she controls the aspects of her life, Bruce with his techniques of abuse and reconciliation and if the book is readable or not. This book does an amazing job of taking us out of our reality and putting us into someone else’s, indefinitely controlling our decision to read it or not. It is evident that without control, no author would have a successful Popular Literature novel.

The theme of sexuality and gender identity is apparent throughout the memoir, Fun Home. It introduces two distinctly different coming-to age stories of a father and daughter dealing with their sexuality. The novel highlights moments of struggle each character experiences when they discover that their identities differ from the expectations that are being promoted by their society. Much of what the novel says about what makes us who we are is contributed to the acceptance we hold true for ourselves. Thus, the constant and growing shame Alison experiences throughout this story is evident as it appears to originate from the discomfort the world offers her. With not being able to hold acceptance within herself, Alison additionally begins to feel discomfort in her own female body as well.

The story beings with the introduction of Alison, a 4-year-old girl, who seems to be admiring a woman wearing male clothes. Her father, Bruce, quickly realizes this and scolds her for being in awe. When he angrily asks her if that is what she wants to look like at that age, she feels pressured to lie and say, “no.” As Alison hits puberty, she begins to identify with herself more. However, the feeling of shame grew with her and was upset with herself when being attracted to pictures of female pin-up models. This is because as a child, her father played the role of society’s enforcer. In other words, he attempted to make her act more girlish and dress more ladylike, so that others would view her as “standard.” What Bruce was not aware of, was that this persistence of filling his daughter with shame and discomfort is what helped mold the pathway for developing compulsive, OCD-like behaviors. Such behaviors were driven by her lack of sense in control of the world, which is a result of the world forcing her into repressing herself.

As the reading goes on, we do, however, become exposed to the underlying issues that appear in the father. Quite similarly, he too identifies as “non-standard.” This may explain the reason why he acquires the need to express his femininity through his daughter. Bruce Bechdel grew up hiding his sexuality. He set up barriers to hide behind, and therefore, never found a way to accept who he was. The author depicts him to be cold and an often-absent father whom is full of rage. His relationship with Alison was unsteady, as they both asked a lot from each other; for Bruce to be more masculine, and for Alison to become more feminine. This rocky relationship and the continuous struggle he faced accepting his sexuality was believed to be the two possible causes to which led Bruce to suicidal death.

In a way, as much as Bruce and Alison are similar, their stories can easily be seen as opposites of each other as well. While Alison presumed the courage to explore and express her sexuality, her father remained in secret. It was not until his death that she became aware of his hidden sexuality and the many affairs he pursued, primarily with his teenaged male students. By knowing this, Alison was quick to realize that her father never fully escaped from his self-destructive tendencies. This, in turn, gave Alison reasoning behind Bruce’s erratic but frequent temper tantrums her and her brothers often experienced growing up. Her assumptions were quick to make due to her living a much more honest and happy life once fully accepting herself. It allowed her to minimize her discomfort and approach things in a more appropriate and honest manner. Unlike her father, who did not know how to see or accept himself in this way.

By exploring Bruce’s story, it can easily be interpreted as a cautionary tale of what could potentially happen if someone is unable to openly express their sexuality and gender identity. In this sense, it will encourage one to reflect and rethink on how accepting others helps to shape the identity of that person. While the story focuses on the openness versus repression of coming-to-age individuals relating to their sexuality and gender identity, it also idealizes the way that shame can drive a person to obtain self-destructive thoughts. This stands true as Alison states, “I suppose that a lifetime spent hiding one’s erotic truth could have a cumulative renunciatory effect. Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death” (p. 228). Her relationship with her father was rocky all throughout her childhood. However, by remembering the way she felt growing up struggling with her sexuality, she began to re-examine her relationship with her father. Thus, acknowledging the hidden connection her and her father had when she was a child as they both faced a sexual identity crisis.

Alison’s difficulty in speaking about her father’s sexuality arose as she was struggling to know herself. However, these struggles begin to subside once attending a college that was much more open to the different ways of being. The community differed from that where she came from, which in turn, encouraged her to become more open to both herself and others regarding her gender identity. From there, she began to explore her sexuality in a more honest way. Alison wanted to reclaim herself from her past and in doing so, started venturing into public relationships. This is a prime example of why it is so important for a person struggling with their identity to be surrounded by an accepting and nurturing community. It strengthens that individuals mental state by encouraging them to accept themselves and by limiting those negative thoughts Bruce encountered.

Overall, Fun Home makes note of how living a closed life is profoundly damaging. It also draws focus to the efforts it takes one to live an open life when their sexuality does not meet the norms of their society. It emphasizes that these expectations are found everywhere, catastrophically affecting the lives of those feeling as if they do not belong. An example of this is displayed through Alison’s suffering as a child. Her father’s efforts to characterize herself into something she is not, is a reflection on her insisting the same from him. It connects the complications repression of one’s self-identity has on the individual themselves. Bruce hiding his sexuality created an almost inevitable pathway to live his suffering through his daughter. He wanted to express his feminine side through her, however, was impossible due to Alison’s tomboyish style. Furthermore, the book offers no solutions to these serious and unfortunate issues that society continuously presents to us. Those solutions are to be made by the world, as a whole.

The tragicomic Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel, is generally considered one of the most important pieces of the modern LGBTQ canon of literature. The graphic novel tells the story of Alison Bechdel’s attempt to find the truth about her father’s sexuality and what lead him to possibly commit suicide. Along the way, Bechdel finds her own sexuality. Bechdel’s choice to write about her and her father’s simultaneous journey to finding their sexuality was revolutionary at the time. Very few authors were writing openly about their own sexuality, and something even more revolutionary that Bechdel addressed was mental illness. It is unexpected so late in this story, on page 137, that Bechdel would include a lengthy section discussing her childhood Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Why include this section at all when the entire graphic novel has focused on Bechdel’s relationship with her father and their joint quest to find their respective sexualities? There are many reasons that Bechdel could have chosen to include this section, namely to accentuate the extent that she felt separated from her family, to compare how society, represented by her mother, has differing views about mental disorders and sexual orientation, and to show how reliable, or unreliable, she is as a narrator.

One reason Bechdel discusses her mental health in Fun Home is to show the direct effect that her parents had on her mental state growing up. On page 137, Bechdel mentions that one of her compulsions is perfectly lining up her sneakers. She labels the left shoe as her father and the right shoe as her mother. She tries to line them up perfectly as to not show favoritism for one show, or parent, over the other. Another compulsion of Bechdel’s mentioned on page 137 is that she felt the need to kiss all of her stuffed animals: “No matter how tired I was after all this, I had to kiss each of my stuffed animals– and not just in a perfunctory way.” In the panel, which depicts Bechdel kissing her stuffed animals, it is clear that, among the other stuffed animals, there are three bears. Bechdel shows herself kissing an elephant while dressed in her pajamas, which really shows us just how long the process took. Bechdel admits that this is deeply rooted in the fact that her parents showed very little physical love for her: “Though it verges on the bathetic, I should point out that no one had kissed me good night in years.” (137) Bechdel mentions earlier in the book that she once attempted to show affection towards her father, but was overcome with embarrassment after kissing her father’s hand. Evidence of this lack of emotion from her parents can also be seen on pages 19 and 20 when Bechdel kisses her father’s hand and then leaves the room from embarrassment. The bottom panels on page 19, the top panels on page 20, and the bottom panel on page 137 are all sparsely detailed panels, showing just enough detail to show where the scene takes place. The book Bechdel’s father is reading on page 20 doesn’t even have a title, unlike most other books in Fun Home. Bechdel’s lack of decoration on these panels mirrors the lack of parental love in Bechdel’s life.

Another reason that Bechdel included this section in Fun Home could be to show how her family’s views of her mental illness and her sexuality varied. Bechdel’s mother very directly asked Bechdel if she felt like there was something wrong in her life. Her mother then very graciously helps Bechdel through recovery by assisting Bechdel with writing her diary. Bechdel would dictate her life to her mother night after night. We know her mother clearly made an effort to try to understand what was happening with Bechdel because Bechdel found Dr. Spock’s parenting book and read the section that exactly described her OCD. This is one of the few times that Bechdel’s mother appears in Fun Home. When Bechdel sends a letter to her parents very bluntly stating “I’m a Lesbian.” (76), her mother’s response is so lukewarm and unaccepting that Bechdel doesn’t even depict her mother in the panels on pages 58 and 59. Bechdel’s mother did not make any effort to understand her daughter simply saying “Your father has had affairs with other men” (58) in response to Bechdel’s coming out letter. Instead, she minimizes an important part of Bechdel’s life by bringing attention to something else, completely shutting down any possibility of Bechdel and her mother having an effective conversation about her sexuality. On page 77 Bechdel is on the phone with her father who says that her mother wouldn’t even come to the phone because “she’s pretty upset.” Her mother then gave a full response a week and a half later. Bechdel comments on her mother’s response saying “As disapproval goes, I suppose it was rather mild. Still, I was devastated.” (77) The panel where Bechdel reads her mother’s response letter shows only the letter, typed on a typewriter, giving it a cold and formal appearance. As far as communication goes, a typed letter is probably the most detached way to communicate. It seems odd that the woman who once would take dications for young Bechdel’s journal would be so helpful and accepting of one part of Bechdel’s personality, her OCD, and so cold and rejecting of another part of Bechdel’s personality, her sexuality.

By far one of Bechdel’s most alarming, and important, compulsions is found in her many diary entries. It is odd that Bechdel would wait until so late in this book, which is characterized by its exact detail, to mention the fact that she kept a journal. But, Bechdel didn’t just keep a journal; she obsessively kept a journal. On page 140, we see that Bechdel began writing on February 24th, which was Ash Wednesday. Even Bechdel’s first entry is objective reading: “Dad is reading The Trumpet of the Swan. I have my tail on. We went to church. We got ashes. 7 kids were sick today.” Bechdel keeps writing journal entries throughout her life with the same sort of objectivity. On page 78, Bechdel shows a journal entry that she penned in college, 10 years after Ash Wednesday, 1970, when she began. Her diary entries from her OCD era have the words “I think” riddled through the pages. Bechdel later creates a symbol that she covers pages with to represent “I think” for the entire journal entry. Bechdel herself describes this as “a sort of epistemological crisis” (141), she believes that she cannot trust her senses and what she perceives is happening. This sets up an issue for readers. On the one hand, readers want to believe that the narrator and author are telling a true story. On the other hand, the author herself has doubts that she is telling the story as accurately as possible. So can we believe Bechdel, even if she doesn’t believe herself? Even though Bechdel felt the need to include “I think” by every single statement she makes, part of her compulsion is writing very exact and objective descriptions of what has happened. There’s no reason for anyone, but Bechdel to believe that she isn’t telling the truth. This question about what is true and what isn’t also directly relates to one of the main plotlines of Fun Home: did Bechdel’s father commit suicide, or was his death an accident? Bechdel throughout the text is searching for the truth in her father’s death, something she was once obsessed with as a young child. It is also worth mentioning that in the entirety of Fun Home, outside of her drawings of her journal, Bechdel uses the phrase “I think” 6 times, all referring to her father.

Bechdel includes an interlude about her OCD to show how much isolation she feels from her family, to draw attention to the differing reactions to mental illness and sexuality, and to question her own valid narration. This section serves only to emphasize the amount that Bechdel felt detached from her parents, as most of her compulsions are based in some sort of love or equality ritual. Bechdel even refers to her shoes as mother and father, as well as the bears that she rotates sleeping with. This is definitive proof that at least some of her compulsions lie in her upbringing and relationship with her parents. This section also serves to highlight the differences in the reactions that her mother had to Bechdel’s mental illness and Bechdel’s coming out. Her mother reacts very similarly to the way that society acts. As a society, we believe that mental illness and sexuality are both parts of who you are, yet it is more acceptable to treat and subdue mental illness than “treating” or “subduing” sexuality. Bechdel’s mother is perfectly happy to be a scribe for Bechdel’s journal entries, yet will not even speak to her daughter after Bechdel comes out. Lastly, Bechdel includes this section as a sort of explanation for the graphic novel itself. While Bechdel did get over her OCD, she’s still obsessed with finding the absolute truth about her father’s death. Bechdel also emphasizes that we cannot truly know the absolute truth, no matter how hard we try, which gives readers doubt that Bechdel is telling as close to absolute truth as she can. While this break in the main plot of Fun Home seems unnecessary, it serves a myriad of purposes that can only help us to better understand Bechdel’s life and her father’s death.