Theme Of Man In The Dark And Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

In both Paul Auster’s Man in the Dark and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, the telling of stories is a way of letting go in order to achieve survival of each of the separate grief the characters hold. Various efforts are made by the characters in both novels to distract themselves in their daily lives, and also in the stories they were telling away from what is seen as an “inescapable” story from their past that continues to haunt them. The unreliability of memories in Fun Home, and the concept of multiple realities, and being left “in the dark”, as the title of Paul Auster’s novel suggests, leaves both the reader and the narrators wondering which is the truth, and how much each is supposed to trust. With the use of the uncanny at play, this essay will explore and attempt to explain the use of these unreliable memories and unavoidable stories in order to survive in their day-to-day lives.

“I am alone in the dark, turning the world around in my head, as I struggle through another bout of insomnia.” (Auster 143), is the opening line to Paul Auster’s novel Man in the Dark. There are a few connotations as to what the phrase “alone in the dark” could entail. On a more literal sense, the main character August Brill is alone and awake in the dark while everyone is sleeping. But on a more analytical viewpoint, August Brill is laying awake during another sleepless night, unaware of what’s going on around him. The reason he tells himself stories is to help him fall asleep and pass the time from the darkness at midnight, to the morning sun eight or nine hours later. “I lie in bed and tell myself stories…. As long as I’m inside them, they keep me from thinking about the things I would prefer to forget.” (Auster 144).

The first story August tel...

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...ms with his suicide, but in a way she is making her father’s life immortal, and allowing him to survive in a timeless way. “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.” (Bechdel 232).

The distractions of the stories August tells himself are always broken. His concentration is weak, and often times he drifts away from his original story. “Suddenly, an urgent need to empty my bladder.” (Auster 184), “I pause for a moment to shift my position in bed, to adjust the pillow, to take a sip of water.” (Auster 164), and, “I switch off, and once again I’m in the dark.” (Auster 190), are phrases that break readers away from the story of Owen Brick. August himself is a broken man; he is grieving for his wife, Sonia, and his daughter who is divorced, and for his granddaughter.