Analysis Of ' Fun Home ' By Alison Bechdel

Second, through the narrator’s use of pronouns, he creates multiple illusions and mysteries. For example, in the opening, the narrator states “First he grabbed the revolver that was in a desk drawer, rubbed it gently across his face, put it to his temple, and pulled the trigger” (5). At a glance, one may think that Ismael has killed himself. However, this is not the case. The pronouns “he” and “him” stand for two different people, Ismael and the minister. In the closing of the story, the narrator states, “And Ismael coming out of his office (the other man’s office, the minister’s) almost relieved, even though he can predict what awaits him” (6). Here, the narrator finally solves the mystery behind “All About Suicide”; whether

In "Living like Weasels", author Annie Dillard uses rhetorical devices to convey that life would be better lived solely in a physical capacity, governed by "necessity", executed by instinct. Through Dillard 's use of descriptive imagery to indulge her audience, radical comparisons of nature and civilization, and anecdotal evidence, this concept is ultimately conveyed.

Eavan Boland’s poem “It’s a Woman’s World” illuminates the fact that history has shaped an unfair role for women in today’s society. Boland criticizes the gender bias with regards to the limitations placed on women and their job choices despite their ability to be just as successful in the workplace as men. Regardless of the fact that the bias against women in the workplace is often overlooked, Boland aims to show the shared reaction of women to the gender bias prevalent in our society by using short sentence fragments, repetition, and a fire motif throughout the poem.

Alex Kotlowitz’s There Are No Children Here is a documentary exploring life in inner-city Chicago during the late 1980’s. The book follows the lives of two African American youth, Lafeyette and Pharoah Rivers, who live in Chicago’s Horner Homes over the course of two years. It tells of a lifestyle that is a reality for many Americans and forces the reader to acknowledge a broken system that so many turn a blind eye toward. Kotlowitz does not sugarcoat the struggles and hardships that the citizens of the inner-city face every single day. The Rivers’ boys, like all the children of inner-cities, experience situations and know of unimaginable horrors that rob them of their innocence and childhoods. Lafeyette and Pharoah have to face and overcome many forces that can change their lives for the worst, such as: gangs and drugs, the social system, the Chicago Housing Authority, and the battle within them to give into the worst of society. Sociological concepts, including: racism, strain theory, and social stratification can explain some of the exploitation of Lafeyette and Pharoah.

On page 134 of Fun Home, Bechdel writes, “It was a vicious circle, though. The more gratification we found in our own geniuses, the more isolated we grew.” Illustrated along with this text is a large panel presenting the Bechdel household with circular panels drawn on the side of the house to detail the separate goings on inside each room. Each figure is also painted in a silhouetted form, creating a dissociated and an impersonal impression for which to view the Bechdel family. “While Bruce Bechdel is shown to have an explosive temper and be prone to the occasional violent outburst, it is the distance he creates in the household that seems to cause the most harm.” (Helvie) The separate, circular and interior panels could be representing

Book Summary- In Fablehaven, two kids, Seth and Kendra Sorenson are dropped off at their grandparents house while their parents go on a cruise for “family reasons.” When they arrive at their grandparents house, Grandpa Sorenson acts suspicious when the kids wonder where their grandmother is. Grandpa Sorenson introduces them to Lena, the housekeeper and Dale who helps with yard work. He then leads them to a spacious attic space where there are many things to be entertained with. Grandpa only has two rules for Kendra and Seth: No going into the woods and never enter the barn. Kendra is given three keys, over a couple of days she finds that one key goes to a jewelry box and one to a dollhouse. In the dollhouse, there are two more hidden

Automatically, the reader knows that serious issues are about to be discussed and that the outcome may not be positive. This novel challenges the material ideology discussed above. It does this by bringing the issues to the forefront and reporting on them in a fictitious yet realistic manner. The reader is not led to believe that the ending will be happy, he is supposed to expect the consider the harsh realities of the world throughout the piece.

To begin, the elements of tone and mood work together to reveal and support the message of survival and struggle. In the novel, Chiger uses descriptive details and her thoughts and attitudes toward the situation that she was placed into set the tone. She describes and explains the agony, hatred, and hopelessness she and others felt in the sewers, revealing her bitterness for the sewers and the Nazis. Chiger also uses mood to present her messages by creating different moods around different characters, making some optimistic and hopeful while making others pessimistic and morose. “This was a reflection of their personalities: my father was gregarious and personable; Weiss was gruff and miserable” (Chiger 107). This is relatable because some people may have disparate attitudes toward a negative situation, and each person may have a different demeanor or mood in response to it. Chiger conveys her themes of struggle and survival through tone and mood, and makes it somewhat relatable.

Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” exhibits the mindless, unbiased, and instinctive ways she proposes humans should live by observing a weasel at a nearby pond close to her home. Dillard encounters about a sixty second gaze with a weasel she seems to entirely connect with. In turn, this preludes a rapid sequence of questions and propositions about “living as we should”. Unfortunately, we tend to consume our self with our surroundings and distractions in life, which is not a problem until we are blatantly told. How have we strayed so far from our once instinctive lifestyle?

Young people live life by the day. The process of self discovery begins as a teenager. For some, this could take years. For others, it could happen quickly. Sometimes hardship leads people towards self-discovery. In the book Ordinary People, by Judith Guest, Conrad struggles with his identity; in the past, Conrad was never able to do anything without his brother’s influence. Once his brother drowns, Conrad feels lost without him. In the beginning, middle and end of the book, Conrad goes through the stages of grief, and through this process, Conrad discovers his identity.

Part graphic memoir and part psychoanalytical study, Alison Bechdel’s, Fun Home, is a charming story about a girl’s search for identity within an unconventional family. The novel style autobiography frames Alison’s childhood and adolescence as she struggles with themes of sexual confusion, gender identity, and convoluted family dynamics. These ideas are explored through the examination of Alison’s relationship with her father, and their shared passion for literature.

Gwen Harwood explores through many of her poems the role of women in society in which reflects the challenges of the changing nature of Australian society and expectations of women. Harwood highlights the stultifying world of domesticity and the importance of identity in relation to motherhood, by challenging dominant values and mainstream beliefs. Harwood criticizes the male dominated society and channels the zeitgeist of 1960s feminism, by depicting the entrapment of motherhood in a domestic life and reinforcing of loss of identity within her poems. In both of Harwood's poems 'suburban Sonnet' and 'In the Park', the common themes of motherhood and loss of identity is enforced using a wide variety of literally techniques to portray the inner pain and anguish felt by Harwood in a patriarchal society.

In this paper, I will explain how the article “The Lady and the Tramp (II): Feminist Welfare Politics, Poor Single Mothers, and the Challenge of Welfare Justice” by Gwendolyn Mink relates to the thematic focus of working women and the Marxist and socialist branch of feminism. In Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, Rosemarie Tong explains that Marxist and socialist feminists understand women’s oppression as a labor issue. Women’s work is not viewed as a productive contribution to society. One of the ways Marxist and socialist feminists sought to improve women’s oppression was through the wages-for-housework campaign of the 1970s, which fought for work done in the domestic sphere to be paid and respected by society. In this same vein, Mink’s article can be viewed as a continuation of sorts of the wages-for-housework campaign. Mink suggests that poor single mothers have the right for their work to be recognized by society and supported economically like the Marxist and socialist feminist in the 1970s.

No human being is completely free. Individuals’ values, ideas and identities are influenced, and to a certain degree, shaped by the cultures and societies they live in. However, by realizing identity, an individual can find a sense of independence, which subsequently leads towards self-actualization. In the novel “Like Water for Chocolate”, by Laura Esquivel, the protagonist, Tita, faces her journey from a young, submissive daughter to a strong, independent woman who is eventually able to achieve self-actualization, which is reflected in her non-traditional sense of identity and independence, and is something that not only ties in with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but I can relate myself to as well.

Fun Home is a retelling of Alison Bechdel’s life through the lens of her relationship with her father. However, because of what she considers to have been his suicide, Alison is left with an incomplete picture of who he was in life. By calling Fun Home an autobiography, Bechdel enters an autobiographical pact with the reader that ensures that what Bechdel is telling us is the truth. However, elements out of her control leave Bechdel unable to provide certain objective facts necessary to her narrative. As an attempt to remedy these absences and in turn maintain the validity of her story, Bechdel uses intertextuality to fill in the gaps of in her retelling. By overlaying masterplots of fictional narratives over her own, the reader is able to get at an understanding of the kind of person Alison’s father was. In this way Bechdel is able to reveal things about her father that she can 't prove to be true, but are reflective enough of his life to become true.