Villain or Victim: The Portrayal of a Homosexual Father in Fun Home

...

The untimely death of Alison’s father brought about an unusual reaction in Alison. His death, which Bechdel suspects is a suicide, happened right after they shared their moment of intimacy and honesty. For a woman that longed for this personal connection with her father, and to have finally obtained it, her reaction to the death was very emotionless. One of her graphics show her telling one of her friends in college about the death, and her friend thinking that Alison is joking (Bechdel 227). Alison replies, “Why don’t you believe me?” and the friend says, “Uh... lemme see. Because you’re laughing?” (Bechdel 227). This could be caused by denial, but it is possible that Alison, just like her father used to do, is putting on a false appearance. Just like her father was incapable of expressing his inner emotions, Bechdel adopted that same strategy in the mourning process of his death. She puts on the act of not being in extreme grief because she has an alternative method of mourning: the process of writing her graphic novel. Through reliving and portraying all these memories, Bechdel “...gradually detaches herself from the memory of her father's death, a process integrally connected to the visual representations that are drawn from her memories of their time together and supplemented by his old letters and photos” (Dean-Ruzicka). This grieving process is only another aspect of Bechdel’s life that can be attributed to Bruce’s own conflicts while raising her. One could easily imagine her father acting similarly if he was put into Alison’s situation, which can be labeled as another parallel between the two.

Bechdel’s relationship with her father shaped a huge part of who she is today. Backtracking through the whole thing to write this novel must have been excruciating at times, but it had to have helped Bechdel better understand what made her the way she is and also helped bring closure to her numerous confusing memories. It is still unclear how Bechdel wanted her father to be remembered, and his development through the novel has proven that such a complicated character can not be labeled simply as a victim or a villain. Just like any other father, he had his moments of rightful parenting, but it was overshadowed by the distance he had to keep due to the suppression of his inner feelings. The struggle that Bruce went through, and consequently that Bechdel also went through, left some damage, but also cultivated the strong, independent woman Bechdel is today.

Works Cited

Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. Print.

Dean-Ruzicka, Rachel. “Mourning and Melancholia in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic.” ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies 7.2 (2013): n. pag. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

Tison, Hélène. "Loss, Revision, Translation: Re-Membering the Father’s Fragmented Self in Alison Bechdel’s Graphic Memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic." Studies in the Novel 47.3 (2015): 346-64. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.