Bechedel's Use of Reversing "Traditional" Characteristics of Gender Roles

The general public depicted in An's story utilizes a test to decide how masculine or feminine an individual is to dole out them to specific assignments and sexual orientation particular positions. While this is by all accounts fairly tragic at to start with, it quite accurately reflects the present society. In spite of the fact that individuals are not compelled to seek after professions that fit their cliché gender roles, in reality, there are unmistakable "manly" and "ladylike" connotations with numerous policed acts, wherein not adhered to, is met with prejudice, violence and varying levels of ridicule.

We are all living in a society that is filled with social expectations of gender. From our early age, we seem to be able to response to these expectations accordingly. For example, we notice Barbies are for girls while robots and cars are for boys only. In the “Performative Gender”, “Doing Gender”, and “Nerd Box”, authors all indicate gender is learned instead of inherited. They bring out their insightful observation and critical personal experience to illustrate how the social expectations with punitive effects construct our gender unconsciously. These articles provide a great lens for us to understand the mental state and behaviors of the main characters in Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel portrays how living in Beech Creek, Pennsylvania during the 1930s not only repressed both her father, Bruce, and her from coming out as a homosexual and genderqueer, but also trapped her mother, Helen, in her “women box”. Through the graphic memoir, Fun Home is able to present the struggling process that one may need to go through before admitting one’s unusual gender identity and sexual orientation.

Does deviating from one’s gender norms inevitably doom one down a spiral of moral corruption? Tim O'Brien, author of “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” and Ernest Hemingway, author of “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”, certainly seem to hold this view, as evident by the fates of the major female characters in their respective works. The deviance of the major female characters in both works appears to corrupt not only themselves, but also pollute their partners, causing them to suffer injury or harm as a result. The degree of injury ranges from negligible, like Fossie’s demotion and broken heart, to fatal, like the bullet that rips through Macomber’s skull. It begs the question, are these stories meant to serve as cautionary tales for their female readers, or possibly for their husbands, so they may recognize gender deviance and stop it in its tracks before their wives transform into Margot Macomber or Mary Anne Bell? This essay will analyze what such characters say about pervading views of women, both in society and in literature.

Alison Bechdel’s memoir, Fun Home, is a compelling narrative in which Bechdel takes the reader through her life and gives insight into her relationship and the complex lifestyle her closeted homosexual father, Bruce Bechdel. However, her serious topic is told through the narrative of comics, images that literally put the readers into the moments of her life with her. Even though, the graphic images provide visual insight, Bechdel makes a conscious decision to include a multitude of literary allusions because, as Bechdel describes, “I employ these allusions to James and Fitzgerald not only as descriptive devices, but because my parent’s are most real to me in fictional terms.” (Bechdel, Page 67) Her continued use of literary allusions can be seen as an insight to her life. The particular works of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Oscar Wilde’s plays An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Ernest because of their content concerning facades and the lengths one person goes through to keep a part of their identity or life a secret. TRANSITION Bruce Bechdel was the master of secrecy, hiding a part of his sexuality behind his heterosexual marriage in order to keep his idea of an acceptable livelihood. It is clear that Bruce Bechdel had a few infidelities with males throughout Bechdel’s childhood, infidelities that she did not know until later in life. This creates a whole new perceptive for Bechdel. The father who she thought as a controlling, stern, literary fein

Sexuality has an inherent connection to human nature. Yet, even in regards to something so natural, societies throughout times have imposed expectations and gender roles upon it. Ultimately, these come to oppress women, and confine them within the limits that the world has set for them. However, society is constantly evolving, and within the past 200 years, the role of women has changed. These changes in society can be seen within the intricacies of literature in each era. Specifically, through analyzing The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne and The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, one can observe the dynamics of society in regards to the role of women through the lens of the theme of sexuality. In both novels, the confinement and oppression of women can be visibly seen as a result of these gender roles. Yet, from the time The Scarlet Letter was published to the time The Bell Jar was written, the place of women in society ultimately changed as well. Hence when evaluating the gender roles that are derived from sexuality, the difference between the portrayals of women’s oppression in each novel becomes apparent, and shows how the subjugation of women has evolved. The guiding question of this investigation is to what extent does the theme of sexuality reflect the expectations for women in society at the time each novel was written. The essay will explore how the literary elements that form each novel demonstrate each author’s independent vision which questions the

Presenting literature to the public that is meant to be a commentary on social or political issues, masked under the guise of entertaining and fictional, is a tool implemented by authors and activists for centuries. While not all satire is as overt as Jonathan Swift’s suggestion that we eat the babies, it does not diminish the eyebrow raising suggestions that are conveyed once the meaning has been discovered. In Aphra Behn’s The History of the Nun and Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina, the established expectations of the female role within society are brought into question then directly rejected. These expectations establish that women should be deferential to men, morally unblemished, and virtuous at all times. Men, however, are not held to these expectations in the same way. The masculine roles assumed by Isabella and Fantomina demonstrate a private rebellion against the established patriarchal society as it warns against the under-estimation of women and proves that women exist independently.

In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel demonstrates how myth and stereotyping contribute to the construction of prejudice. Alison’s father, Bruce Bechdel, lived a false life by denying his sexual orientation and created the illusion of a “normal” family life. By marrying a female and creating offspring, he perpetuated the public illusion that he had the perfect home and family. Despite this myth of perfect domestication, the true private life of the Bechdel family could be described as dysfunctional. Bechdel “witnessed only two gestures of action between” (Bechdel 68) her parents, which consisted of her father giving her mother “a chaste peck before leaving on a weekend trip” (Bechdel 68) and one time when her mother “put her hand on his back” (Bechdel 68) as they watched television. Bechdel writes how on both occasions, she “was astonished and discomforted” (Bechdel 68) and suggests that both her mother and father preferred “fiction to reality” (Bechdel 85). Both Bruce Bechdel and his wife, lived in a world where they did not acknowledge reality; it was easier for them to live a lie then to come to terms with Bruce’s homosexual identity. The conflict within the family could be attributed to Bruce’s suppression of his sexuality, which in turn, could be attributed to growing up in a time period when it was

Sex and gender categories, such as “men,” “women,” “masculine” and “feminine,” have been in place for generations. They are socially constructed categories and expectations assigned to children at birth, in order to regulate and shape them into this “ideal” heterosexual being. Men are expected to embrace masculine qualities, while women are required to be feminine and submissive to the male authority. Monique Wittig’s article, “One is Not Born a Woman” observes how the class of “women” is not “natural,” but is created by the society and framed by the male ideology, as a way of producing a clear gender difference between men and women. J. M Coetzee reinforces Wittig’s beliefs by sharing similar ideas of hegemonic masculinity and male dominance

In Lives of Girls and Women, people grow out of reading. As the protagonist Del says, reading “persisted mostly in unmarried ladies, would have been shameful in a man” (Munro, 117). As in The Bell Jar, women in Lives of Girls and Women who are educated and who are professionals are seen as masculine and immature. Mature and marriageable women learn to use make-up and to flaunt their physical beauty. Del overturns this rule by memorizing poetry and doing well academically. Both Esther and Del feel that academic achievements best define and express their sexuality, though not necessarily enhancing their sexual lives. While the bored, rich girls in The Bell Jar spend most of their time painting their nails and getting a tan, Esther feels out of place among the idle and the fashion-conscious. Her friend Doreen admits that at her college, all the girls “had pocket-book covers made out of the same material as their dresses”(Plath, 5). The night that Doreen returns drunken from the apartment of a stranger named Lenny, Esther closes her door on her friend but does not have the heart to lock it. Thus, Esther successfully shuts out the false societal values of female sexuality for a while, but acknowledges that her form of sexuality must co-exist with that of Doreen and of other females in her society.

An example of this notion is shown in Hope Leslie when Governor Winthrop, the landlord, reacts to Hope, the tenant, coming home late and refuses to reveal her reason why: “...Winthrop was not accustomed to have his inquisitorial rights resisted by those in his own household, and he was more struck than pleased by Hope’s moral courage” (184). Evidently, Winthrop’s reaction proves that women with “moral courage” are unladylike because moral courage is a manly trait. On the other hand, Esther Downing, another character in Hope Leslie, embodies the cult of true womanhood. Esther’s mere look at her love interest Everell is described as “a look of...pleased dependence, which is natural... and which men like to inspire, because --perhaps -- it seems to them an instinctive tribute to their natural superiority” (219). So, “Esther’s look … of dependence” confirms that the expectation that all women are supposed to have the same behavior, gestures and personality is meant to not only please men but to also hide their true form. Therefore, the cult of true womanhood presents an internal battle in female writers and Sedgwick presents this womanly struggle through the contrast between Hope and Esther. Society wants women to be quaint housewives but publishing a book defies the cult of true womanhood. Thus, defying the qualities rooted in the cult of true womanhood causes high risk of

This book features a collection of Judith Butler’s essays and her primary intention with this collection is to “focus on the question of what it might mean to undo restrictive normative conceptions of sexual and gendered life” (12). These essays look at the construction of gender and the way certain conceptions of it are normalized and reproduced in potentially harmful and limiting ways. Butler uses a feminist poststructural framework to critique the normalizing/marginalizing views of gender that exist because the “terms that make up one’s own gender are, from the start, out-side oneself, beyond oneself in a sociality that has no single author (and that radically

Judith Butler questions the belief that behaviors of either sex are natural. She proposes a rather radical theory that gender is performative and that sex is constructed. When gender is being performed, it means that someone would take on a role, acting in such a way that gives society the idea of their gender and constructs part of their identity. To be performative means that we produce a series of effects.Gender is constructed and is not in any way connected ‘naturally’ to sex.

Author and civil rights activist Maya Angelou once said, “How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!”. When one thinks of comic books, it is very likely that the subjects that come to mind are Marvel’s Spiderman or DC’s Batman. Although comic books are stereotypically thought to be mainly about super heroes, there are a wide variety of subject matter they could be written about, such as romance. In the 1950s – 1960s, it was common for these romance comics to exploit the social norms of that time and emphasized the subject of gender roles. While the men in comic books were usually illustrated in a brave heroic manner, the women would be portrayed to be what would now be considered a stereotypical “trophy wife”. As a young child reading these comics and taking in these images, they are slowly molding their ideals to believe that what they are reading and seeing is what is accepted and normal in their society. By coding gender norms into the texts, authors are helping mold the ideology of its readers to believe that it is acceptable for both genders to follow specific rules that accommodate to the believed social norms of the time.

Apart from all the sexual confusion, there are some non-sexual parts of Isadora’s life that still feels old-fashioned. She strongly believes that you can only have one main purpose in life. “You can’t be a woman and an artist. Having babies uses you up.” Her mother and three sisters all had artistic ambitions, but they also included becoming pregnant as a big part of their lives. The idea that women cannot be both mothers and career driven is thankfully old-fashioned. However, the crazy sexual fantasies that sometimes becomes reality Isadora has is still distasteful in today’s society.

According to Judith Butler’s theory, gender is a social concept and not a natural part of being, therefore making it unstable and fluid. Gender identities are produced through what Butler calls “performativity,” the repetitive acts of expression that form and define the notions of masculinity and femininity. These repeated performances are engrained within the heteronormative society and impose these gendered expectations on individuals. In this respect, gender is something inherent in a person, however Butler writes “gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to pre-exist the deed.” In Olga Tokarczuk’s House of Day, House of Night identity is undoubtedly central to the characters’ stories, specifically the strict social constructs of gender that is snarled with one’s identity. Tokarczuk’s novel presents a mosaic of stories that put into question heteronormative gender roles, while offering an alternative way of existence. Analyzing House of Day, House of Night with Judith Butler’s gender theory demonstrates the characters struggles within the rigid constructions of gender and how some ultimately deal with moving past such restricting expectations.