The Autobiographical Pacte In Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

Picking up the book Fun Home, one would imagine that the novel would embellish some sort of comical life story of a misunderstood teenager. Although the short comic-book structured novel does have its sarcastic humor, Alison Bechdel explains her firsthand account of growing up with the difficulty of living of finding her true identity. Alison was a teenager in college when she discovered that she was a lesbian, however, the shock came when she also discovered her father was homosexual. I feel that the most influencing panel in Fun Home is where Alison and her father are in the car alone together. Not only does this panel explain the entirety of the novel in a few short speech bubbles, but it is the defining scene that connects

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

In the following essay, I shall be exploring the representation of identity in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, mainly through a postcolonial feminist lens. My analysis will focus on Bruce and Alison’s interactions with each other and how Bechdel deconstructs the stereotypical ideals of gender roles and sexuality, via intertextual references.

The way Bechdel decides to depict the characters through her art is a major factor in how the characters are developed, and can be a major factor in how the story is perceived. At a first glance, the depiction of Bechdel’s persona, Alison, in “Are You My Mother?” appears to have very masculine features. An uninformed reader may at first assume that the story is about a man. However, through the dialogue and narration it is quickly revealed that the drawings are depictive of a homosexual woman. Bechdel’s portrayal of herself in the graphics as having very masculine features says a lot about her self-perception. She creates her own persona, so the character seen in the cartoons is Bechdel in her own image and likeness. Clearly, Bechdel illustrated her comic so that the character bared a strong resemblance to her own self-image. Later on in the story, starting on page 83, Alison is depicted wearing glasses and she bears a much stronger resemblance to actual pictures of Bechdel. In several scenes throughout the story, including the opening scene, Bechdel has dreams of herself as a child. These scenes showed a young Alison, dressed in what would widely be considered boys clothing (Bechdel 73). The illustrations as a whole are very sexually ambiguous. This may be perceived as an allusion to Bechdel’s struggles with her own sexuality. However, the refrences to Bechdel’s struggles go beyond the art.

“The story is told through the photographs, and so what may appear to be autobiographical is not always so. On the other hand, many of the events are completely fictional, although they may be true in a historical context. For some of these events, there are photographs; for others, the image is a collage; and in all cases, the result is entirely of my doing. So although it may appear that these stories are my family’s, they are not precisely, and yet they are. (xi)”

Identity-“Ones personal qualities.”Identiy is something only he or she can fully define. My uncle says I am affectionate,cheerful, and calm. My grandmother sees me as slim, pretty and sweet. My dad described me as perky, cheerful and happy, my mom says beautiful, gentle, and self-conscious. These adjectives describe me accurately, yet they are only abstract versions of me. Adjectives cannot begin to describe me and I aknowlege these descriptions for what they are, a condensed translation from my outward self to the world. It is impossible for anyone to understand me completely because nobody has experienced the things I have. My mother has never cherished a raggedy doll named Katie and my father never

What provokes a person to write about his or her life? What motivates us to read it? Moreover, do men and women tell their life story in the same way? The answers may vary depending on the person who answers the questions. However, one may suggest a reader elects to read an autobiography because there is an interest. This interest allows the reader to draw from the narrator's experience and to gain understanding from the experience. When the reader involves him/herself in the experience, the reader encounters what is known and felt by the narrator. The encounter may provide the reader an opportunity to explore a

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.

Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, documents the author's discovery of her own and her father's homosexuality. The book touches upon many themes, including, but not limited to, the following: sexual orientation, family relationships, and suicide. Unlike most autobiographical works, Bechdel uses the comics graphic medium to tell her story. By close-reading or carefully analyzing pages fourteen through seventeen in Fun Home one can get a better understanding of how a Bechdel employs words and graphic devices to render specific events. One can also see how the specific content of the pages thematically connects to the book as a whole. As we will see, this portion of the book echoes the strained relationship

Alison Bechdel’s memoir, Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama, focuses on Alison and her relationship with her mother. Her relationship with her mother affects the way she relates to people, especially her mother. Bechdel begins this portrayal of Alison’s relationship with her mother on the cover of the book. The red, wood-like background of the cover of the book, is behind all of the other objects. This background is most likely a desk or table of some sort with several objects sitting on top of it. Firstly, I notice the mirror. Mirrors are typically seen as a symbol of self-indulgence and vainness. The mirror is golden and the title of the book, Are You My Mother? is placed in the mirror itself. Secondly, I see the red beaded necklace. The beads are not completely on the book cover. Beads, jewelry, and the color red are often seen as signs of affluence and richness. Next, I see the black and white picture. What appears to be two females are present in the picture. One is older than the other. The woman in the picture looks like she is sitting and appears to be smoking and reading some sort of book, magazine, or newspaper. There is a girl off to the left side of the woman in the picture, clasping her hands, smiling, and watching the woman from a distance. Finally, I notice the lipstick on the cover. The lipstick is in a white container with a gold band. I can clearly see that it is a red shade of lipstick. Again, red lipstick is usually seen worn on someone of importance.

This book is aimed at two groups of people. The first are readers who are familiar and intrigued by the history of the essay. Interest in this genre is surely seen in contemporary and best-selling practitioners such as Leslie Jamison, Charles D'Ambrosio, Roxane Gay, Eula Biss, John D’Agata, David Lazar, and Patrick Madden. The University of Georgia Press has helped foster this genre with the publication of After Montaigne: Contemporary Essayists Cover the Essays (University of Georgia Press 2015). Though my book is topical and the chapters connect in theme, voice, and content, pulled apart, each is a stand-alone inquiry. The chapters fall within the Montaigne-like essay history of a narrator, through nonfiction material, making

What is an autobiography? Is it just a story of one’s life? Base on Marsha Meskimmon, “The Autobiographical Model” the answer is yes and no, some may know by that definition but it is not that simple.

Throughout her formative years, Alison has felt detached from her father, attributing her inability to connect with him to the fact that “you can’t lay hands on a fictional character” (Bechdel, 84). From the lack of

The extract of An Autobiography details Iacocca’s years at school, and how he acquired his writing and debating skills through the activities at school. The content of this autobiography is very simple and concise. This can be seen when Iacocca explained “She(Iacocca’s teacher) would quiz us on the Word Power Game…after a few months of the quizzes, we knew a lot of words”. Immediately, another paragraph proceeds, as Iacocca recalls “i joined the debate team…that’s where i learned how to think on my feet”. The content in An Autobiography is fast-moving, where the cause and result is explained, and rapidly another point is brought up. Such content with little continuity and very concise explanations resemble the speech of an interview, where the interviewee would answer a question as directly as possible. The straightforward tone created by the content of An Autobiography, provides a conversational mood. The content of My Early Life by Winston Churchill is significantly unsimilar to that of An Autobiography. Churchill recalls his memories in a very fluent and interconnected manner, where one event with one central theme is elaborated and detailed using a sequence of descriptions. After the headmaster asks Churchill “you have never done any latin before have you?”, Churchill is asked to memorise various latin words, and then after a

The criticism that Mphahlele 's awareness of his being a "hybrid ' person imparts an inability to his being able to "write his story himself " is a criticism contrived out of literal derivations of the Greek components of the word "autobiography". The textual landscape of Down Second Avenue includes many varied and detailed arenas, the rural setting and its many dimensions, the city and its many dimensions. In the sense that autobiography is part of the genre of biography in the postclassical European tradition, that being the life accounts of saints and princes, the criticism is perhaps true to some extent. However, in the aspect of the autobiography being a search for identity and