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Summary Of Bruce Bechdel's Fun Home

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In Allison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Bruce Bechdel’s home restoration efforts are a recurring theme, and the details of his actions do not go unnoticed by young Allison. While he is obsessed with perfection, he cannot break the belief in his daughter’s mind that his actions are tainted, that there is a darker secret behind his drive. Understanding Bruce’s homosexuality and femininity gives light to the source of his obsession with restoration, and the truth of his daughter’s supposition. Bruce’s laborious restoration expresses countercultural femininity, but his fear of repercussions drives him to conceal any such expression he perceives. While Bruce only admitted his feminine attitudes after Allison has discovered her own identity (Bechdel 221), …show more content…

As an acceptable outlet for his unacceptable self-identity, returning the home to its original state served as a release from strict heterosexual standards. It provided him a place of appreciation and respect for his feminine qualities within acceptable masculine standards. However, in using this outlet he doomed himself to a perpetual battle regarding it. He could not publicly act out his homosexuality, and so hid it behind the façade of a caring father, a perfect family, and a dedicated historian. Perfecting his work promised an ultimately untrue sense of normality within his life. While his passionate restoration efforts gave him reign to vividly express himself, social pressure constantly forced him to mask this very expression in innocence and normality, lest a darker truth reveal itself. Not only did he become a source of oppression for his feelings, but his oppression came through the very expression of it. In his choice of suit (Bechdel 98), his reservation to speak, yet ultimate confession to his daughter (Bechdel 220-1), and his treatment of Roy’s photo, Bruce shows his efforts “juggling public appearance and private reality” (Bechdel 101). It is his incarnation of these two realities in his home that drives his work to restore it, a strict concealment of internal passions, but a freedom to express through his very means of

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