Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” is an enthralling memoir about a young girl’s peculiar childhood, which involved her family’s funeral business, infatuating trips, family turmoil, solitude, and her befuddling relationship with her masterful artificer of a father; in which similarities ranged from obsessive compulsive disorders and literature to sexuality. The most profound being homosexuality. Bechdel utilized duo-specific, speech bubbles, as well as, subject-to-subject paneling to illustrate the complex father-daughter relationship where Alison and Bruce Bechdel perpetually attempted to compensate for each other’s eccentric gender behaviors. Initially, both Bechdals yearned for different genders, imposing expected behaviors upon the other. For example, Bechdel stated, “Not only were

Bruce then states, “What’re you afraid of? Being beautiful?” his speech bubble is now rectangular and ends with a sharp point to signify that he too is angry. He feels covetous of his daughter, for she could wear picturesque jewelry and everyone would be in awed by her embellishments; however, if he were to wear them, he would inflict shame upon himself and family for acting out of social norms. Moreover, Alison ridicules certain hobbies her father revered. For example, his profound admiration of flowers and gardening, where she states, “What kind of man but a sissy could possibly love flowers this ardently?”(90). The panel illustrates the young, infinitesimal girl watering enormous plants against the Victorian mansion. The dark porch of the house symbolized the menacing and suppressed sexuality that the house sheltered from spectators. The overgrown plant is indicative of the both the father and daughters overwhelmingly desire to be of the opposite sex. The well manicured lawn and house depicts how the father chooses to suppress his internal desires of sexuality and expend energy into creating an artifice for spectators to