Gender Differences In Alison's Fun Home

Bechdel’s fight for her gender identity was a constant in Fun Home, as was Bruce’s attempts to force femininity onto her, driven by his need to express his gender identity vicariously through her. Bechdel’s writing explains the obvious expressions of gender identity such as page 14 when Bruce decorated Bechdel’s room femininely despite her protests, prompting her to claim that her house was going to be made of all metal. But the illustrations depict the less obvious manifestations of gender identity. On page 95, we see Bechdel calling herself a, “connoisseur of masculinity,” with a Western film playing while her father is in the background arranging flowers (Bechdel, 95).

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is an autobiography written by Alison Bechdel. The graphic novel takes its readers through Alison Bechdel’s childhood using engaging diction and detailed drawings. One of the big themes of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is the discovery of one’s sexual orientation. Over the course of her life, Alison Bechdel eventually comes to the realization that she is a lesbian. Ultimately, Alison Bechdel uses this novel to recount her experience of events that helped to shape her personal identity, which resulted in a transformation of the way she sees herself. In the end, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic is a wonderful narrative that shows its readers the complexity of personal identity, and how things like love, the values of

In the following essay, I shall be exploring the representation of identity in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, mainly through a postcolonial feminist lens. My analysis will focus on Bruce and Alison’s interactions with each other and how Bechdel deconstructs the stereotypical ideals of gender roles and sexuality, via intertextual references.

In Alison Bechdel 's Fun Home, there is a focus on a sculpted perception of gender roles produced by society and a great emphasis on how Bruce and Alison challenge these strict gender specific characteristics. Through Bruce’s femininity and Alison’s masculinity along with their homosexuality, they are able to go against the norms and the collection of rules set by society. It is also through their struggle with gender roles that one is able to understand their sexual orientation. Although Bruce and Alison seem fairly different from one another, there are elements that pull them closer together revealing their similarities.

In Fun Home, Alison’s dynamic with her father is damaged to a certain extent and she finds inspiration in how she wants to not make her life the way that she grew up. Just like Alison, Sara in The Bread Givers, finds inspiration in the dynamic with her own father because she wants to have a life of her own choosing, but she thinks so highly of father and his love for books and knowledge. These two girls both look up to their fathers to a certain extent but at the same time they each find resentment in the culture norms that their fathers push towards on them. Both Alison and Sara are damaged by their fathers dynamic within the family but they both find inspiration to not get overshadowed by who their fathers are and want they may want for them but a life of their very own.

The autobiographical graphic novel “Fun Home,” by Alison Bechdel presents characters evolving to the reader in an intimate way. She reveals within her novel the high cost of claiming to be gay or lesbian within America. Instead of reading the author’s recollection of her experiences, her graphic novel connects the reader within the experience as the observer. This allows the reader to look at both the personality of the novelist and the developmental impacts that have shaped her. “Fun Home,” is a distinctively persuasive novel that is entangled within the lives of Alison’s family. While presenting to the reader the explanations of Bruce’s death, Alison endeavors to adjust to the reality of her father’s death by remembering family life at the “Fun House.”

"A Feminine Man Is a Powerful Thing to Be". Alison 's father is obsessed with decorating, he is seen at work reading a book called Architectural Digest. Decorating is his passion, and is the reason why his relationship with his children was so strained and damaged. Alison always felt like her dad put furniture and materialistic objects before the love and compassion a parent is suppose to show their children. Alison states "And of course, my brothers and I were free labor. Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like precision robot arms" (Bechdel, 9). Bruce was a perfectionist in every aspect. He insisted the vase of flowers to sit at a certain angle and that the picture on the wall hung just the way he liked. Bruce shows even more signs of zest when he yells at Alison because her neckline did not match her outfit. Something as simple as matching that most masculine men would not care about is one of Bruce 's pet peeves. Bruce 's erratic behavior is overwhelming for his family that they started to resent him for the way he treated them. "I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture" (Bechdel, 14). The way Bruce treated his kids was child abandonment, the only time he deals with his children is when it comes

In Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, Alison Bechdel composes a graphic memoir to inform readers about her journey of coming out as a lesbian to her parents. To add to this note, Bechdel also gives details about her family and how she discovers her father’s true sexuality – he is attracted to males. She builds the story around the tragic event of her father’s mysterious death.

Early on in her childhood, Alison came to the realization that her family was different. As individuals, and as a unit, they were just plain weird. Unlike most young girls, Alison lacked a strong bond with her parents, most notably her father, Bruce. Because they both display introverted personalities and had divergent gender identities, Alison and her father never devised a solid relationship. Bruce is described as possessing generally feminine qualities having passion for fine art and sophisticated interior design; whereas Alison claims to have become “a connoisseur of masculinity at a young age” (95). Neither of them fit their stereotypical role within the family; Bruce didn’t act like a macho-man dad, and Alison wasn’t playing dress up with all the other little girls. Though their personas seem compatible, the stark difference in their gender affiliations was a source of great tension between Alison and her father.

“Caption: My father killed himself and I became a lesbian cartoonist.” That opening line captivated my peers and me and brought us into the wild ride that was Fun Home the musical. Based off of Alison Bechdel’s comic-style novel by the same name, the musical became a Broadway sensation. Only labeled as “Based on,” the musical does an incredible job staying true to the novel. While alike in a significant number of ways, the musical’s focus is more towards the side of Alison’s growing up and learning about her sexuality than her father.

(Alison and her father’s relationship to and resistance to gender norms) In the story Fun Home, the author describes his family life, and how the main caricature get lesbian. In particularly, the Author (Alison Bechdel) shows the relationship between her and her father in homosexuality. Alison write a comic book describes her life, and her family life as will, especially her father. There is similarities and differences in their relationship and resistance to gender norms in the comic book Fun Home.

During the Seventies of the Twentieth Century, America witnessed a prominent shift in its culture, society and politics. In fact, “the sober, gloomy seventies seems like […] a prolonged anticlimax to the manic excitements of the sixties” (Schulman 1). Problems of economic stagnation and high unemployment instilled in Americans a deep sense of depression and disenchantment. Unsolved issues around the Vietnam War and civil rights conflicts ignited a culture of escapism and individualism to challenge the long-established order and traditional norms. Taken altogether, they smashed the old consensus embracing “the sense that Americans, however much they might disagree on specifics, shared fundamental values and could solve disputes peaceably” (Schulman 15). Amid this traumatizing time of disillusionment, Wes Craven made his debut horror movie The Last House on the Left, censored in many countries due to its controversial scene of sadism, rapes and violence. The movie depicts the brutal rape and murder of Mari Collingwood and her friend Phyllis by a gang of criminals, and her parents’ equally brutal revenge on the murderers. However disturbing it is, it uncompromisingly portrays the America’s crisis of confidence with

Although Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home demonstrate pronounced differences in setting and design, both novels employ a reflective narration of the past to address common themes of trauma, unorthodox family relationships, and sexuality. Both stories utilize this retrospective narrative to expose masculinity’s stratified hegemony as a driving force of internalized shame, violence, and the death of self. As The Bluest Eye’s Cholly and Fun Home’s Bruce are examined in terms of hegemonic masculinity’s influence, the common themes in both works can be understood as a result of masculinity’s hierarchical ascendency.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home explores the relationship between Alison and her closeted father, Bruce Bechdel, to shed light on themes such as gender, the coming-out process, and the complicated dynamics of family life. Alison’s efforts to illustrate an accurate picture of her father facilitate the exploration of these themes, particularly through the discussion of life, death, and literature. Her memoir was written to deal with her emotions after her father’s death, in her mind a probable suicide; in this way, Fun Home is transformed into a detective work, putting together the puzzle pieces of her father’s life and her relationship with him. The complexity of their relationship stems from the fact that both Alison and Bruce share many traits,

Women have always been treated differently from our male counterpart. As a woman, we are automatically born with a strike on our back, and as an African-American, we are seen at the very bottom of the totem pole. The trials and tribulations that we are put through no man could possibly withstand. In “Homegoing”, many issues that are still prevalent in today’s society is discussed. The author of the novel touch bases on the importance of family, cultural heritage, and gender inequality. Gender inequality is one of the main issues that women today face. In the beginning of the novel, the women of the village were controlled by the men in all aspects of life. Every move they made were scrutinized by their man counterparts. As the book progressed throughout the decades, the women were still facing issues that the women of today face.