Fun Home A Family Tragicomic Analysis

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, a graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel. The autobiography focuses on self-identity by discovering the memories of the past. Bechdel combines texts and images, especially the presence of her father in her life, as the way to develop her own identity. The process of relating and understanding her own life to her fathers’ can be examined through the strategic use of the different contexts in her life. As Alison grows, she continually develops her sexual identity. Bechdel paints vivid portrait of the complicated relationship between her and her father to explore the theme of identity; which is facilitated through the finding of her gender and the coming-out process.
The interaction of texts and images frames the story
First, she did not care about outfits. “Who cares if the necklines don’t match?” (15), said young Alison. Her father controls what she wears, because Bruce wants her to look like a girl and her father’s style tends towards the effeminate (98). Second, she admires Roy’s appearance. Alison admits that she has been “a connoisseur of masculinity” (95) at an early age and begins to realize that she wants to act more masculine. Moreover, she refuses to wear barrettes or pearls her father forces upon her. Alison emphasizes her masculinity by rebellion against Bruce and his command, while her father prevents her from expressing it by completely control her appearance. Bruce does not care about young Alison’s opinion and ignores her comment. In spite of Bruce’s expectation of femininity upon her, young Alison ends up wanting the opposite. Eventually, at age fourteen, she has the freedom to dresses up in suit as a man. Instead of going to the dance with Randy, Alison decides to dance with Beth. Bechdel describes the way she dressed up as " a nearly mystical pleasure, like finding myself fluent in a language I'd never been taught" (182). Granted that, Alison feels comfort with the clothes she puts on as a way to enter into her own identity. Throughout her childhood, Bruce is very forceful on what she wears and made her unable to identify her true identity. In this scene, she greatly enjoys the temporarily free of her father
Bechdel writes: “Not only were we inverts. We were inversions of one another” (98). They are looking at each other instead of looking directly at their own reflection. Readers can move the perspective between Alison and Bruce. In which the boxed text reads “velvet” pointing to Bruce who dresses with the most luxurious suit he had and another boxed text reads “least girly dress” pointing to Alison who wears the least feminine dress she could find. Both of them do not feel comfortable of what they are wearing or fit with their assigned gender roles. On Alison’s side, she desires Bruce’s masculinity outside while on Bruce’s side, he desires Alison’s body. Similarly, in the panels on page 99, Bechdel compares herself to her father to convey the similarities between them. She writes: “But I wanted the muscles and tweed like my father wanted the velvet and pearls—subjectively, for myself” (99). The father is displayed as being gay, with his feminism ways and the daughter is shown as being a lesbian, with her masculine ways. Their outside is masking the inner identity, such that her father is too hesitant to wear pearls. The different orientations they had make up the missing part for each other to be socially accepted in what is defined as normal in the society. Alison being a lesbian and her father being a closeted gay man summed up their sexualities and their