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Essay On Fun Home By Alison Bechdel

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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 …show more content…

Throughout the novel, Bechdel seems to struggle with the more affectionate side of love, especially when it comes to her family. This is demonstrated when she writes, “We were not a physically expressive family, to say the least” (Bechdel 19). It is quite likely that this had a pretty major effect on Bechdel in which she did not know how to express herself through affection, which lasted throughout most of her childhood. However, as she got older, she was able to partake in the more intimate forms of affection with her female partners. It is during her search for personal identity that she not only discovers her sexual orientation, but is able to engage in affectionate moments without feeling overtly awkward of …show more content…

It is no secret that when Alison Bechdel was a child, homosexuality was not exactly met with open arms. Due to the unpleasant views many heterosexuals had in regards to homosexuality, Alison Bechdel was at first quite cautious when it came to being open about her newfound sexual orientation; however, she eventually opened herself up to her family, friends, and the world about who she is and did not let the political prejudices of others stop her. This is evident when Bechdel writes, “It was in that tremulous state that I determined to tell my parents. Keeping it from them had started to seem ludicrous anyway” (76). Here, Bechdel decides to come out to her parents, deciding that it was absurd not to tell them. Evidently, the prejudices of society could not keep Alison Bechdel down, and this resulted in her personality being shaped by the courage of being oneself, which is hardly an easy thing to

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