Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel and Rape Fantasies by Margret Atwood both express the heteronormative stereotypes and repression. Fun Home is a comic autobiography of Alison Bechdel’s life from a young girl to a young adult as she discovers with her own lesbian sexuality, while her father Bruce’s suspicious death, and the secret homosexuality that he kept hidden from everyone throughout his life while having affairs with underage boys. Rape Fantasies is a short story in which the narrator and protagonist, Estelle and her co-worker converse over their different “rape fantasies” as they play a game of cards. Both Fun Home and Rape Fantasies slowly reveal the different undertones and personalities of each character through their …show more content…
Alison and her father, Bruce, are both homosexual individuals, although Alison freely comes out to her family and friends as a lesbian and is supported by many people, Bruce was never able to feel this comfort with anyone except for Alison whom he confesses to a short moment before his death. In our time, for any male to come out as anything other than straight and heterosexual is frowned upon and sickening. Therefore, Bruce’s obsessive desire to keep up the appearance of being a good, Christian family man to the outside world so that they do not perceive him as something different than he really becomes his sole purpose. On the other hand, Estelle’s rapist in her fantasies coincides with the orthodox setups of most assaults that happen in our society. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, approximately three percent of men in America have experienced an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime and that ninety percent of adult rape victims are female. Estelle depicts a rapist as a man who does not live up to the idea of a macho, tall, handsome man able to win a woman by the sheer power of his masculinity which concurs with the common. All throughout our society, there are many stereotypes we may all be guilty of, such as assuming that all women want to marry and have children, or that all men love sports, however, each one is being dispirited by …show more content…
Estelle refuses to become the victim in her fantasies as she fights against her perpetrators or averts a dangerous situation by conversing and sympathizing with her foreseen rapist. Alison, on the opposite end, rebelled against her father’s influences on how she carried herself. She disliked the flowers and the dress and the color pink. Christopher Ryan, a co-author of Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, pronounces, “What this is essentially doing, even though many parents don’t realize it, is setting our child up to be the “perfect lady,” and teaching her how to be the stereotypical woman.” In this situation, Bruce plays the role of “society’s enforcer”, attempting to make his daughter act more girlish and dress more ladylike, however, this miscarries as it pushes and motivates Alison to become more like him without even knowing
Alison Bechdel uses her graphic memoir, Fun home, to explore her relationship with her father. She uses the book as a tool to reflect on her life and the affect her father had on her. She discovers how her fathers closeted sexuality affected her childhood and her transition into adulthood. His death left a powerful mark and left her searching for answers. She clearly states this when she says, “it’s true that he didn’t kill himself until I was nearly twenty. But his absence resonated retroactively, echoing back through all the time I knew him.” (23). This feeling drove her to look back on their relationship and find what binds her so strongly to a man she never understood.
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 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
Bruce Dawe's purpose is to convey something about rape to the reader. Written from the perspective of a raped girl, his heart-rending poem shares her intense suffering and the terrible impact that rape can have on both the victim and the family. But most importantly, Dawe evocatively comments on the "glare of blindness" that is often shown towards those who have tragically been subjected to rape -and calls for more compassion and understanding from all.
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.
Fun Home shows how as the reader we can become educated and heal from the stories like that of Alison Bechdel’s childhood. We also can see Alison’s journey of healing as well. This full circle journey is why literature is so versatile and important to our society and culture. We depend on the creation and growth of literary themes like the ones we see in Fun House to help us grow and deal with the real world.
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...
...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.
One of the most horrible things that has erupted from the subjugation of women is rape culture. Rape culture is the downplaying of the crime of rape to appease the violator, the accusation that the victim made a choice that led to their rape, or even jokes that suggest rape. According to Jessica Valenti’s, “In Rape Tragedies, the Shame Is Ours,” in today's world many people give in to rape culture by participating in these acts that somehow change our mindsets into believing that, “it is more shameful to be raped than to be a rapist”. Once ...
In Fun Home: A Family Tragic Comic, Alison Bechdel uses the graphic novel technique of bringing visuals and concise text to her audience to reveal the relationship with her father in a perspective that can not be modified through the readers perspective and interpretation. Bechdel employs this type of writing style to help visualize a better interpretation of how she describes the differences in both her and her fathers’ gender roles throughout the novel. This tactic helps discuss and show how these gender roles were depicted as opposite from one another. But, in this case being opposite from one another made them gain a stronger relationship of understanding and reviling that these differences were actually similarities they also shared.
Many of the attitudes, beliefs, and mistaken ideas about rape have been with us for centuries. By looking at myths, such as “women ask for it,” and “it would do some women good to get raped,” from a historical perspective, lead us for better understanding how they evolved. Women are still seen as the property of men, are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today’s world. Men are usually more aggressive, and women are seen as passive. (Vogelman) This socialization process is changing, but slowly.
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.
Many of the attitudes, beliefs, and mistaken ideas about rape have been with us for centuries. By looking at myths, such as “women ask for it,” and “women secretly enjoy rape,” from a historical perspective, can lead us for better understanding how they evolved. Much stems back to the idea that women are still seen as the property of men, and are protected as such. Men and women are still taught to occupy very different roles in today’s world. Men a...
As each is telling their fantasy, Estelle is doing her best to try to deflect the situation by making jokes about their fantasies. After all the women have told their fantasies, Estelle says, those aren't rape fantasies. I mean, you aren't getting raped, it's just some guy you haven't met formally who happens to be more attractive than Derek Cummins. . . and you have a good time. Rape is when they've got a knife or something
“Rape Fantasies” is a weird story, but funny. The title catches the audience attention, making them anxious to read the story. The story is creepy, but awesome. As I readers read deeper into the story, the more interesting it become. Whoever reads this story really do need to have a good sense of humor because most will not find this story funny or will get offended. In addition, the title is quite weird due to what the story is actually about.