English Gender Studies

The Distance Between Each and every child has a different relationship with his or her father. A fathers relationship is like a snowflake; there could be big or small differences but will never be the exact same as anyone else’s. In Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home she provides a plethora of archives that produce her ultimate insight on her relationship with her father. When reading the book many questions about the relationship between her and her father are answered without the use of words. The artwork on each page allows the reader to conclude and assume emotions that may have been present without actually writing the way that he or she was feeling. She uses the pictures to give the reader a stronger and closer impression. Despite how simple the cliché of a Love-Hate relationship is, that is epitome of her and her father.
Although Alison’s relationship with her father was relatable in more ways than not, it was still anything but ordinary. Towards the beginning of the book she wrote, “Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like precision robot arms.” (13). This was written after pages of her father giving her and her brothers many chores to do in order to get his house into shape. This is what really set the tone of the book for me. After the first chapter I felt like she had expressed her feelings of her father well enough to assume that he was going to always be that way. She didn’t have to state the fact that her dad was distant from her, her drawings and expressions told the story alone.
Bechdel uses more than the drawings to produce a strong image of what was going on in her past. She also references many books, television shows, and movies. When she references the books it produces a strong image because as the reader, I assume that she is an impressionable little girl who is reading such intense books. She often recreates the scenes of her childhood, which is ultimately preserving her past. Because Bechdel wrote through her perspective the