What Is Alison Bechdel's Use Of Imagery In Fun Home

Tensions of existential angst and loving Authentic Selves in a Fun Home. “To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. To not dare is to lose oneself” - Sren Kierkegaard. Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home uses the medium of Graphic Narrative to intricately explore the importance of living an authentic life, and how having choice and finding love in life becomes the antidote to the existential dread of dealing with human mortality. Bechdel’s use of visual imagery, such as using colder color tones and flat emotional character expressions, as well as the overall feel of the coldness of death that is the fun home, brings forth within the reader a feeling of what it is to live a meaningless life, caught within the existential angst of our impending deaths. It is an …show more content…

Just two nights before his death, Alison has a dream where she is attempting to get her father to witness a “glorious sunset”. 123). The. Bruce ignores her for a moment, and when he finally comes to Alison, “The sun had sunk behind the horizon and the brilliant colors were gone.” (123). The next panel shows the black silhouettes of the two of them looking toward the would-be sunset, the reader seeing only the cold, bland blue and white which has dominated the novel. Drawing her and her father all in black highlights the inevitability of despair in relation to his death that was known to be coming. Bechdel notes, “If this was a premonitory dream, I can only say that its condolence-card association of death with a setting sun is Maudlin in the extreme” (124). These words perfectly encapsulate what is being portrayed in the photo; a lack of vibrant color and emotional awe, in a cold, unfeeling empty space. The empty space is indicative of the emptiness felt within her father and by proxy her as well. The suppression of his true self, like the sun setting without him seeing the colors, led him to live an empty and unfeeling disconnected life. Bruce feels as if the