Dichotomy In Fun Home Bechdel's

here is an age-old discussion regarding the dichotomy of nature and nurture and which impacts human behavior more. Nurture refers to the development of behavior through influences such as childhood experiences, social relationships, and surrounding culture. Nature refers to the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are.

An excellent example to explore the role that this dichotomy plays in the development of the human mind is in the setting of isolated communities. An isolated community refers to a group of people with limited access to external ideas, resources, or physical space and can in turn limit the amount of diversity present within the community. Restricted access to ideas and resources can translate into specific group

As Pinker stated, the ideals that a community holds are directly shaped by its members (Pinker 14). The town that Bruce lived in holds specific ideals of its own. As seen in figure 2, Bechdel illustrates the timeline and map of her father’s life. In this image, Bechdel is able to show the limited space that her father resides within. Because his entire life was lived in the same town, he was not exposed to a diverse way of thinking. Despite having homosexual tendencies, he was not able to express himself in this way due to living in a small community that was not accepting toward homosexuals. Bechdel’s father also projected his repressed sexuality onto Bechdel growing up, which caused her to be ashamed of her own homosexual tendencies. Bechdel’s father pushes the experience that he was shaped to believe—homosexuality is wrong—onto Bechdel, as that was the behavior that his community shaped him to believe. This indicates that isolated communities shape behaviors that stretch from generation to generation when they are not exposed to diverse thinking, which is similar to the way that Pinker describes the human mind being

In order to communicate these prejudices, Celeste Ng uses space to convey meanings about race, gender normative behavior, and family relationships. The first example that Ng uses relates the physical space around them as a detail that indicates how difficult it is to break family bonds, despite wanting to. In the novel, there is a lake that exists in close proximity to their house. It is the lake that caused Lydia’s death and represents the families desire to be drawn apart. The lake is described as a “great void” (Ng 276), almost as if the family’s strain is causing this looming presence to sweep over them that could swallow them up at any moment. Despite this deep set desire, the family finds that breaking apart is much harder than they originally thought. The family finds that within their own type of isolated community, the pressures are overwhelming and each tries to escape in their own way. Marilyn finds that she is unable to thrive in the small town and runs away to Toledo, where she believes she can finally be who she wants to be; however, she discovers that she is pregnant and is forced to return home to the small town she came from, “all she could do is go home” (Ng143-144). This specific example showcases the way that despite wanting the separation, cutting the family ties is very difficult. The