Textual Analysis Of Alison Bechdel

Although a community is a place where people come together and are able to draw strength and identity from each other, Alison Bechdel is not fortunate to have this kind of supportive and uplifting relationship with her family. Instead of wanting to delve further into learning about her parent’s early lives or stories of how they met, she wants to physically and mentally separate herself from them: “I had imagined my confession as an emancipation from my parents, but instead I was pulled back into their orbit” (59). In this passage, Alison wishes to distance herself from her community, but she is unable to because her life revolves around her parents. In other words, she is a part of their “orbit” and their own world. It is their supreme power
In the drawing, Alison is in the fetal position, the specific body of a pre-natal fetus as it is developing. In this position, the fetus is completely dependent on their mother for nutrients, as they are unable to attain these life-bearing essentials on their own. The choice to have the protagonist in a position of complete dependency and weakness is a way to show the perspective of her parents, who believe she must be a present part in their lives and “pulled” back if she makes any attempt to live a life of her own. Furthermore, the cord of the telephone she is using to communicate with her parents seems to wrap around her body, a subtle symbol to show that her parents restrain her from becoming her own person and creating a life of her
After realizing several times that he “[doesn’t] really fit the profile of the country,” the unnamed character tries to find any sense of intimacy with people: “Sometimes, though, I would forget where I was and get lost. I’d drive for hours, searching for something familiar. Seems like I’d spent my whole life that way, looking for anything I recognized”(1). The words “searching” and “looking” suggest that the protagonist has not yet been able to find anything he can relate to in his community. The word “anything” signals a sense of desperation because he aches for something he can feel a connection to, no matter what it is. The repetitive nature of the sentences is a reflection of his life; this “searching” of something that is meaningful to him has repeated throughout his life and caused him to wander