Preview

Fun Home A Family Tragicomic Analysis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1085 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Fun Home A Family Tragicomic Analysis
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 biggest 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. Interestingly, 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 sexual orientation, …show more content…
Consequently, it is through her sexuality that Alison Bechdel discovered feminism. Bechdel writes, “In the harsh light of my dawning feminism, everything looked different” (81). Here, Bechdel is saying that by discovering and joining the feminist movement, she began to see the world, and herself, in a way she never had before. Bechdel goes on to say, “This entwined political and sexual awakening was a welcome distraction” (81). Apparently for Alison Bechdel, lesbianism and feminism went hand in hand, and they both opened her eyes to a world she never knew as a child. She was grateful for this transformation that she underwent and declared it to be a “welcome distraction” (81). Clearly, Bechdel felt that she was on the right path on her search for her …show more content…
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic illuminates to its readers on the way that sexual orientation, love, politics, and the values of society can change lives and personalities. The novel also shows that the search for one’s identity is not always a straightforward path; nonetheless, it is still a path that must be followed. Throughout the novel, Alison Bechdel gained an in-depth understanding about her sexuality, political views, love, family, and classic works of literature, all of which had a hand in shaping the person she is today. Without any one of these things, it is quite possible that Alison Bechdel would be a different person entirely. In the end, this autobiography offers its readers a lesson about finding themselves and never giving up who they are for anybody else’s

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Glass Castle Analysis

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages

    memoir, her parents seek freedom from society’s rules, and cherish their unstable way of living.…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Grace Poured Out Summary

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Herndon transparently describes the state of her family before Katie’s sickness. With three children and busy schedules, Herndon and her husband, Wes, have practically been living separate lives. Katie’s condition forces the family’s dynamics to shift, and the shift is most powerfully uncovered in the book’s distinctive, thought-provoking ending.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This amazing story of survival and dysfunction, of imagination and rationalization, and of shear ingenuity is a testimony to the flexibility and beauty of children. Jeannette Walls’ true story flashes back through a childhood with crazy addicted parents (the father to alcohol; the mother to art and idealism and the father) who raised three children in spite of recurrent poverty, nomadic tendencies, and a heritage of rebellion.…

    • 424 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Betty had admitted this did contribute some to her being “uncomfortable about Homosexuality”. Even with this opposition Betty was part of the resolution on protecting lesbian rights at the National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977. She was really a women’s women. There to support any women during a good cause.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Playing Beatie Bow

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In the novel Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park, the protagonist Abigail learns about the importance of the family. She is a headstrong fourteen-year old girl who has had troubles in her own family, but when she is transported to the Rocks, 1873, and meets the Bow family, she realizes her selfish ways. From her experiences with them Abigail learns that in any situation every family member, including herself, must demonstrate the key elements of keeping a family together. These include love, forgiveness, support and understanding. Ruth Park uses many techniques that illustrate the main theme of the novel – how Abigail learns about the importance of the family.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the story “Stone Soup” Barbara Kingsolver explains how the common modern day family isn’t that ideal “Family of dolls” that many people strive for. The passage was written from Barbara’s first person view and told the story of her divorce, her conditioned journey through it, and the lessons that emerged. Growing up, she believed that the perfect family consisted of a father, mother, sister, and little brother all living together in harmony. After her divorce, Barbara’s views had a slight change.…

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    But right now we'll be stating that term queer* has been seen within Bechdel's graphic novel when she expressed her thoughts about her father. It also gives us a hint of how powerful the word it, that in fact, the word queer was what she could describe her father at the moment growing up under his influence. She first uses the term queer in her comic to express how her father's death had effected her: “My father's death was a queer business—queer in very sense of the multivalent word.” (Bechdel Ch. 3, p. 3)**…

    • 572 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Flannery O'Connor Essay

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Flannery O’Connor cleverly creates for us timeless short stories about simple characters that appear easy to understand. Beneath the words she manages to communicate an intricate message to us regarding faith, love and family. That we are bound together as families in love, even though we do not always like one another. In most families, we tolerate each other shortcomings, like the nagging and bossiness of the grandmother, and the rudeness of the children. We see in her characters, many of the good and bad behaviors that we all accept are the best and worst of each of us on an everyday basis. The impatience and cranky nature of the father in “A Good Man is Hard to Find” and the fascination of parker with tattoos, are symbolic of many of the eccentric and crazy behaviors and habits that family members often exhibit. With faith in those we love, and a belief in God, we accept and tolerate the dichotomy of good and evil operating in all humans everyday.…

    • 501 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Joyce Carol Oates’ “Where Are You Going, Where Have you been?” is a coming-of-age short story that depicts the virtually invisible barrier between adolescence and adulthood. Connie is a feisty fifteen-year-old girl that doesn’t intend to ride in the backseat for the duration of her younger years, unlike her older sister June, who her mother tends to favor throughout most of the story. Her mother causes most of the friction in the house between the two, mainly because “[e]verything about [Connie] had two sides to it, one for home and one for anywhere that was not home” (Oates 552). One critical attribute Oates gives Connie is her undeniable infatuation to sexual curiosity and her willingness to explore. Oates paints Connie identical to average…

    • 1011 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The “Happylife Home” is personified throughout the story to show how the children no longer look to their birth parents to fill their needs and wants, so they disregard George and Lydia. In a desperate attempt for some kind of love and care, the children reach out to the only other thing they know, the nursery. Throughout the story the home does all the work leaving the family useless, never having to lift a finger. The reader learns that Wendy and Peter no longer feel their parents should have charge over them, Bradbury then starts to personify the room giving a glimpse of how the children might have started to see the nursery. The personification progresses the story, helping foreshadow the outcome of the…

    • 717 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Metaphor

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Besides their similarities, Miss Hancock and Charlottes mother are so different that they contrast each other. Miss Hancock is unmarried woman who encourages Charlotte to be expressive. On the other hand, Charlotte’s Mother doesn’t support or care much about Charlotte’s enthusiasm for the subject. As a child, playing with toys wasn’t allowed because it made a mess “A toy ceased to be a toy once it left the toy cupboard” (p 65). Miss Hancock loves teaching children, so if she were Charlotte’s mother, she would tell her to make as much of a mess as she wants. Miss Hancock and Charlotte’s mother are an example of character foil.…

    • 541 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    On Wednesday May 27thth, I attended a play produced by The Ohio State University Department of Theatre, written by Paula Vogel, and titled The Long Christmas Ride Home. I really enjoyed this play for it was creative, and easy to follow. The characters, the setting, and the music all came together to create a memorable play. This production was about a moment that changed one family’s life forever. It is a play with puppets, in which one could say its themes are revolved around sexuality, violence, along with abuse. There are three children named Stephen, Rebecca the eldest, and Claire the youngest. After a dispute that went on between Claire and Stephen, they broke the very expensive chain their father had bought for Claire. This amplifies the heated arguments that took place, and commenced the long Christmas ride home where their father proceeds to worsen the car ride by hitting their mother across the face. After this moment, the story freezes, and we are fast forwarded in time, in order to see the lives of these children on another Christmas night at a much older age. We see that the moment in the car ride home changed their lives forever, and because of that, they all found then similar situations on a cold Christmas night locked out of the house of their significant other watching or hearing them with another person, and ignoring them. We are introduced to each of their sexualities; Claire, and Stephen being homosexual, and Rebecca heterosexual. We see that Stephen dies from a sexually transmitted disease, and how Claire and Rebecca struggle with staying alive or happy.…

    • 1059 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    How would you feel if you found out that the person you love really wasn’t who you thought they were? In the piece, “The Wife’s Story” by Ursula K. Le Guin, she gives the reader an excellent image of the characters using the tone of the story and her detailed mind.…

    • 248 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Burden of a Happy Childhood” Cantwell described her grandparent’s house, the three story Victorian house her family lived in during her childhood life. There are so many great things she has experienced, like having a bird as a pet. After a morning dip on the beach, she had a playful moment with her grandfather in his beautiful garden; he washed her feet to remove the sand from her feet. As she grew older, all the images of those special moments still captured in her heart.…

    • 447 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Family Ties

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin In The Sun” and Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” are both stories that are connected by the common factor of family values. Although both stories have their own individual qualities it is the heritage and importance of family that brings both stories together. The similar personalities of Beneatha from “A Raisin In The Sun” and Dee from “Everyday Use” are a good example of how family values dominate the stories and the characters in them. Both Beneatha and Dee come from families rich in culture, history and traditions but strive to find individuality outside of their family’s norms. However, it is the way in which they approach conformity that is a testament to how one should and shouldn’t go about this process.…

    • 1347 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays