In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, she uses particular objects to relate themes to characters. For instance, Sunbeam bread is the most common placed object throughout the entirety of the novel. Sunbeam bread makes an appearance in the majority of scenes, otherwise known as panels, in Bechdel’s novel to symbolize a loss. The bread is present in many panels concerning the loss of her father, the loss of her childhood, and the loss of innocence. The relationship between this reoccurring object and Allison in the novel is quite interesting because it is the contrast between smiling and happy “Little Miss Sunbeam” versus the dark representation of Alison’s childhood. On the other hand, Sunbeam bread was first made in Pennsylvania …show more content…
The Sunbeam bread appears once again upon her realization of her sexuality. For example, in the car ride on the way to the Bullpen, Alison discovers a pornographic calendar. She “…felt as if [she] been stripped naked [herself], inexplicably ashamed, like Adam and Eve” (112). Little Miss Sunbeam on the bread and the images of seductive women in the calendar create distance between innocence and sexuality. This causes Alison’s innocence to be lost while forming isolation from her brothers as she realizes what she will develop …show more content…
“I had recently discovered some of Dad’s old clothes. Putting on the formal shirt with its studs and cufflinks was a nearly mystical pleasure, like finding myself fluent in a language I’d never been taught” (Bechdel, 182). Bechdel emphasizes this panel as a major turning point in her adolescence.
While facing certain struggles as both Alison and her father try to embrace their sexuality, Alison is able to “come out” to her family at the age of 19 unlike her father who’s homosexuality remains a secret for most of Alison’s life. When Alison tells her mother that she is gay she is able to do so with a sense of a mostly a supportive community. Therefore, it is Alison’s own “coming out” that provokes her mother to reveal her father’s hidden
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
In the story it says, “About how it was like a lemon, it was, and how hot . . . I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.” This connects back to my idea that outcasts are sometimes the solution to society’s problems. Due to this quote, Margot’s statement about the sun is what makes her an outsider in the eyes of society. Later in the passage, it is revealed that Margot’s statement about the sun was correct and solved the problem of what the children think the sun resembles.
...her silent thoughts and how they pulled her away from her love for Logan and Jody, now those same silent thoughts preserve Tea Cake for her in perpetuity. And in Seraph on the Suwanee, Jim’s departure allows Arvay to realize the chasm between her and her past, and in so doing, realize that her struggles portray a woman destined to be a caregiver. For both Janie and Arvay, inner turmoil is quelled into a role that reconciles both themselves and their relationship with their men. And, perhaps most remarkably, this idealization of their partners persists despite – indeed, is even enhanced by – the fact that both women see their former love interests, those who came before Tea Cake and Jim, as now standing on cracked or even shattered pedestals. Both Janie and Arvay in the end take comfort in their new-found roles and those men who best compel them to adopt these roles.
In the memoir, Fun Home, Alison Bechdel effectively depicted her life as a child all the way up to age nineteen when she finally decided to come out to her family. Growing up Alison’s path crossed paths with struggles that try to hinder her while she attempts to grasp on to the identity of being homosexual. Even though Bechdel encounter struggles she is able to overcome those struggles in a supportive environment. Despite her father, Bruce Bechdel homosexuality, which was unknown to Alison for the majority of her life could possibly be the emotional core of Fun Home. In actuality, it is Alison 's personal coming out party that assists her mother, Helen Bechdel, to expose Bruce 's hidden relationships to Alison. Effectively, the process of writing the memoir has really permitted Bechdel to reminisce about her father through the spectacles of her experiences, later giving her the chance to reveal clues about her father 's undercover desires that she was incapable of interpreting at the moment. In a scene where Bruce takes his openly queer daughter to a gay bar embodies the dissimilarities amongst Bruce and Alison 's attitudes of dealing with their homosexuality. Bruce tussles with the shame of hiding his
Throughout chapter one of Fun Home, Alison Bechdel portrays artifice and art as two very similar but distinct things; both overlapping and making it hard to differentiate between what is what. Art, in her view, is the truth, and a skill that has to be mastered. On the other hand, artifice contains partial, or full, amounts of falsehood; it covers up the truth in some way but contains art in itself. Artifice can be, like art, something mastered, but can also be a coping mechanism to cover up something good or bad. Bechdel turns both art and artifice into a very interlinked, combined, version of the two forms. When truth and falsehood are combined, after awhile, it becomes a challenge to distinguish between the two; evidently true to herself.
When they were in their mother's presence, they were happy, but still resent their mothers. Resenting their mothers for not being able to take care of them, they both ended up in an opposite appearance compared to their mothers. Roberta’s mother being religious and conservative led her to being freer about her sexuality. While Twyla’s mother was more open, she was more conservative, working a regular job, and having a normal family. Problems for women or anyone being able to express their sexuality can come from their upbringing.
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
Bechdel was left “rushing from the room in embarrassment” (273) on the one unforgettable occasion that she went to kiss him goodnight. She desperately desired the affection of her father but was not sure how to achieve it. Displaying fondness was not a frequent action within the home, but instead subtle displays of affection. These strains created the stubborn and secluded childhood version of Bechdel who was unwavering in her
	"It mattered that education was changing me. It never ceased to matter. My brother and sisters would giggle at our mother’s mispronounced words. They’d correct her gently. My mother laughed girlishly one night, trying not to pronounce sheep as ship. From a distance I listened sullenly. From that distance, pretending not to notice on another occasion, I saw my father looking at the title pages of my library books. That was the scene on my mind when I walked home with a fourth-grade companion and heard him say that his parents read to him every night. (A strange sounding book-Winnie the Pooh.) Immediately, I wanted to know, what is it like?" My companion, however, thought I wanted to know about the plot of the book. Another day, my mother surprised me by asking for a "nice" book to read. "Something not too hard you think I might like." Carefully I chose one, Willa Cather’s My ‘Antonia. But when, several weeks later, I happened to see it next to her bed unread except for the first few pages, I was furious and suddenly wanted to cry. I grabbed up the book and took it back to my room and placed it in its place, alphabetically on my shelf." (p.626-627)
In the graphic novel Fun Home, by Allison Bechdel, sexual self-discovery plays a critical role in the development of the main character, Allison Bechdel herself; 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.
Going through this comic you find yourself looking at many innocent objects she uses to describe the way her house is set up. She refers to it as a museum. As we discover her dad sexual orientation, we find many of the objects resembles body parts. Other things like the painting of the
King, in introducing the little convent girl to the reader, goes to great lengths to present her as a dreary and uninteresting creature. She wore dark clothing, sat rigidly upright, secluded herself in her room, and displayed little zest for life. Therefor, when King uses the work "blac...
In Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel entitled Fun Home, the author expresses her life in a comical manner where she explains the relationship between her and her family, pointedly her father who acts as a father figure to the family as she undergoes her exhaustive search for sexuality. Furthermore, the story describes the relationship between a daughter and a father with inversed gender roles as sexuality is questioned. Throughout the novel, the author suggests that one’s identity is impacted by their environment because one’s true self is created through the ability of a person to distinguish reality from fictional despotism.
In the face of a homophobic society we need creative and critical processes that draw out the complexity of lesbian lives and same sex choices, not a retreat into the comforting myths of heroines and unfractured, impeachable identities
Savin-Williams, Ritch C. Mom, Dad, I'm Gay: How Families Negotiate Coming out. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2001. Print.