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Gender Identity In Allison Bechdel's Fun Home

723 Words3 Pages

What is the reason society forces us to identify each other’s gender roles as male or female? This is a common question well worth exploring. When it comes to gender roles in society we dictate what behaviors are considered acceptable for someone based on their sex. The world has changed drastically on how gender roles are viewed. For example, actress Megan Fox, does not force gender roles onto her 4-year-old son. Megan stated that she allows him to wear dresses and says in her house her children can be whoever they want to be. Even though some people are here for what she’s doing with her child, we also have some people who do not accept it. In the graphic novel “Fun Home” by Allison Bechdel, the author shares her personal life as far as her relationship with her gay father, and the discovery of her sexuality. Both Allison and her father struggled with their sexual orientation and gender identity. The novel “Fun Home” revolves …show more content…

Societal expectation on gender roles, and appearances are mainly focused in this novel. As Allison’s father changes the wallpaper for her room she stated “But I hate pink! I hate flowers!” (Bechdel 7). Why are the colors pink and blue considered as a female/male color? This demonstrates what we learn based on our sex, along with assumptions that liking that color and flowers are mainly for girls. When it comes to appearances are women not considered as pretty if they don’t “dress and accessorize” like one. “You need some pearls. What are you afraid of? Being beautiful? Put it on, goddamn it!” (Bechdel 99). Was Mr. Bechdel informing that his daughter was not attractive if she didn’t accessorize? An accessory such as pearls should not define a woman as beautiful. Society shouldn’t be the ones to tell us how we appear to them based on the way we look. Between her and her dad it was a “war of cross-purposes” (Bechdel 98) as she

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Analysis Of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

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In the graphic novel Fun Home, author Alison Bechdel recounts memories of her childhood, while contemplating lies and deception of her father and how his life impacted her own sexual orientation. Late in the novel, Bechdel details the afternoon during which she realized she was a lesbian, coincidentally coinciding with the day she signed up to take a class about her father’s favorite novel of all time. Bechdel draws herself in a bookstore, reading a copy of Word is Out, and placed in the frame with her is the shadow of a man who is drawn exactly the way Bechdel previously drew Roy, the Bechdel’s babysitter and yardwork assistant who was sleeping with Bruce Bechdel (Bechdel, 203). Knowing that the author draws everything for a reason, what does

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Identity In Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

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In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel uses images of her father’s distant relationship and obsessive behaviors which lead to the repression of her identity. Bruce, her father, represses his entire family with his obsession with perfection in his life, beginning with the renovation of their gothic home. Within that home, there is rigidity in keeping their home in a perfect state at the cost of Alison and her siblings’ freedom. When Bruce begins to fall apart, he begins to push his obsessive behaviors onto his daughter, restricting her expression of dress and identity. In Fun Home, Alison Bechdel showcases her father’s denial of his femininity as an explanation for living vicariously through his daughter, in ways that he cannot himself.

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Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

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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.

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The memoir "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel, is the author's journey of self-discovery and coming-of-age. Throughout the memior, Bechdel reffelcts on her own life experiences and uses her home business as a metaphor for the complexities of human relationships and the passage of time. The author explores the nature of love, loss, and grief, as well as the challenges of growing up in a family and community with minimal cultural exchange. Through bechdels personal story, she invited readers to consider their own lives and reflect on universal themes that are central to all people.

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Fun Home by the American writer Alison Bechdel carried the themes of emotional abuse, sexual orientation, gender roles, suicide and the role of literature in understanding one’s family role. The tone and mode of Fun Home mainly describes it as a Tragi-Comic. At a young age, Alison always feels like she wants to dress like a boy, but later she discovers that she is lesbian and have more emotional attraction with women. She was shocked to knew that her father was engaged in sexual relationship with gardener and babysitter. The Fun Home started with a scene of the author herself as a young girl playing with her father.

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Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is graphic novel that allows the reader to view the character’s struggles and emotions deeply by being placed as a beholder in the story. Alison Bechdel linked her interpersonal relationships with growing up in a dysfunctional family that suppressed her identity behind artifice objects. Her memoir shows the readers an intimate way to connect with her childhood and early adulthood by discussing controversial topics such as gender identity and sexuality. The author not only shows the down side of living in an atmosphere of social awkwardness and lies, but she demonstrates ways in how people can strive to explore the meaning behind self identity. Bechdel covers a diary of her life as a homosexual women and her father’s gender struggle that contributed to their façade of a perfect life.

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