Bechdel’s Purpose of Fun Home
Post by Jaymee F
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home commemorates her father, Bruce, by viewing his secrets in a new light. The memoir reflects on Alison’s relationships, memories, and sexuality while coming to terms with Bruce’s decision of taking his own life.
Al writes, “...in fact, this IS my father’s story” (p. 196).
(p. 196)
Bechdel shares that after Fun Home’s publishing in 2006, “I had been haunted by my father, and I no longer was. I took him off my hard drive. He was using up all my RAM” (qtd. in Cooke, 2017 November).
Bechdel explains why writing Fun Home was such an important endeavour. She says, “Fun Home was a story…that just was simmering in my head for twenty years ’cause ever since my father died when I was nineteen, I feel like the story of my father and me is very much a political story because it’s the story of two generations of gay people. My father was gay and I was, and we both grew up in the same little Pennsylvania town and he killed himself and I became a lesbian cartoonist” (StuckinVermont, 2008 December).
Bechdel explains why writing Fun Home was such an important endeavour. She says, “Fun Home was a story…that just was simmering in my head for twenty years ’cause ever since my father died when I was nineteen, I feel like the story of my father and me is very much a political story because it’s the story of two generations of gay people. My father was gay and I was, and we both grew up in the same little Pennsylvania town and he killed himself and I became a lesbian cartoonist” (StuckinVermont, 2008 December).
Bechdel proves the importance of self-acceptance as she reflects on her past, which encouraged her to choose a life different from her father’s.
Sinclair includes, “…memoirs contain reflection on the past to make meaning of it” (2019). Fun Home recounts what it was like growing up with a father who was a closeted homosexual, drawing comparisons and differences between Alison and Bruce. Despite both of them being brought up in the same small town, Al’s Fun Home encourages an overall feeling of acceptance of being different for the reader.
Bechdel shares, “This book about my father’s death did reach a broader audience. And it did obtain the crossover that I’d been hoping to achieve with Dykes to Watch Out For when I was really young and naive...to me both projects... [fight for] my ongoing effort to show that queer people are people and that queer lives have value. Not just to the people living them but to everyone. To the broadest possible sense of the community our lives are valuable” (TheGraduateCenter, 2015).
Bechdel shares, “This book about my father’s death did reach a broader audience. And it did obtain the crossover that I’d been hoping to achieve with Dykes to Watch Out For when I was really young and naive...to me both projects... [fight for] my ongoing effort to show that queer people are people and that queer lives have value. Not just to the people living them but to everyone. To the broadest possible sense of the community our lives are valuable” (TheGraduateCenter, 2015).
As revealed by Prof Sinclair in Week 2-Lesson Content 2019, the purposes of life writing are:
1. To entertain 2. To persuade 3. To inspire 4. To inform and 5. To make sense of the world
Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home does all of the above.
1. Bechdel entertains through the use of comedy, artful comic illustrations, and dramatic storytelling.
2. She persuades the audience to see the story from her side, through detail and the establishment of relationships.
3. She inspires readers to accept who they are, undoubtedly sharing ‘it’s okay to be-out-of-the-ordinary’.
4. She informs the reader in various ways, including raising suicide awareness, the stages of grief, and homosexuality and promiscuity leading up to, and during, the AIDS epidemic and more.
5. She makes sense of her world for the reader. We are able to comprehend what possibly encouraged Bruce to choose such a tragic path. We are able to catch a glimpse into the lives of each of the Bechdel’s, specifically acknowledging everyone’s loneliness. As a result, the reader roots for Alison’s self-acceptance as a lesbian feminist cartoonist writer.
Alison Bechdel states, “A writer is anyone who is…not just experiencing their life but is observing it…with something to say about it” (Iowa City, 2010 December). Bechdel’s perspective on the purpose of a writer also correlates with the purpose of memoir and is exemplified in Fun Home as she shares her memoir while reflecting on it and “...trying to understand its meaning in the light of what [she] knows now” (Sinclair, 2019).
References
Bechdel, A. Fun Home. (2006). Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston, NY: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature. (2010, December 27). Writers on the fly: Alison Bechdel [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT-JjXe8a4I&feature=youtu.be
StuckinVermont. (2008, December 17). Alison Bechdel [SIV 109] [Video file]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/nWBFYTmpC54
Sinclair, S. (2019). Week 2 Lesson Content [Lecture Notes]. Retrieved from https://slate.sheridancollege.ca/d2l/le/content/618714/viewContent/8315701/View
The Graduate Center, CUNY. (2015, June 23). Queers & comics keynote: Alison Bechdel [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQrKPmnrZYw&t=947s
The Graduate Center, CUNY. (2015, June 23). Queers & comics keynote: Alison Bechdel [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQrKPmnrZYw&t=947s
Post created by Jaymee
Hi Jaymee,
ReplyDeleteVery nice post explaining the purpose of Fun Home. You mentioned that the purpose of life writing is to entertain, persuade, inspire, inform, and make sense of the world, and that’s exactly what Fun Home did. One thing that I really appreciated was that Alison definitely helps inspire readers to be who they want to be and that it’s okay to be different or prefer things that others might not prefer, and this can be in regards to anything in life. I also feel that it was necessary for Alison to come out with this personal story not just to make others aware of societal issues and help people, but also for herself by removing this weight off her shoulders.
Here’s a link to an interesting interview on how Alison was able to heal herself by being open about her sexuality and basically doing the opposite of living a secret life like her father.
https://www.npr.org/2015/08/17/432569415/lesbian-cartoonist-alison-bechdel-countered-dads-secrecy-by-being-out-and-open
Yussef Attia