Introduction
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – graphic stories by Alison Bechdel with autobiographical roots, released in 2007. The author’s childhood and adolescence are shown through family conflicts. The main characters in this book are Alison and Bruce, a daughter and a father, who are going through difficult experiences in defining their sexuality, identity, social adaptation, and problems caused by these reasons. The Fun Home touches on many sensitive social topics, including the problem of identity and sexuality. Although the work is like reflections in some places, many literary scholars and psychologists have paid attention to this work, which considers sexuality in isolation from identity. The value of this book lies precisely in the construction of the concept of relations between these categories, to which this work will be devoted.
Sexuality and Identity
This book focuses on certain essential scenes from family life, even humorously taught. Nevertheless, this satire hides a whole storehouse of growing-up problems. The action is non-linear, reflecting scenes from the girl’s childhood in great detail. The author himself has carefully thought out the graphic image. The accompanying text references other literary works, visual arts, and even myths. The reader is faced with the problem of identity and sexuality for the first time in the process of describing the life of the protagonist’s father. He is a hidden homosexual, and, using power over his daughter, he tries to indirectly express his femininity through her (Bechdel, 2007). However, conservative principles also stand in the way of society, which Bruce, the heroine’s father, hides behind. Unable to express his sexuality, he deliberately distorts his identity, which leads to anger, and emotional distance from his family.
The father tragically dies under the wheels of a truck, but the author leaves the question of suicide. Alison does not have time to ask him many vital questions, the answers to which she will come much later. At first, it is challenging for her to identify herself with her father even at the level of family relations; it seems to her that they are the most different people (Bechdel, 2007). However, Alison and Bruce’s extremes are formed by the same problems. Identity is fettered by unrealized sexuality, like a heroine who cannot help but lie to her father about attractive female images and the father who emotionally distances himself from the family, hiding his identity (Bechdel, 2007). Against the background of obsessive-compulsive disorders that poured out into art, these characters have much more in common than it might seem at first.
Although Alison had a problematic relationship with her father, it was even more difficult for her to lose him. Alison could guess about his hidden homosexuality, but she could not understand his identity: Bruce hid a lot behind the coldness and anger. However, after his death, the main character could better understand herself and her sexuality, but not at all in identity. Even after her admission, “I am a lesbian,” Alison does not feel completely satisfied with her own identity (Bechdel, 2007, p. 58). An identity shrouded in obscurity is not really a mask to society. It is very likely that the father, Alison, really did not know how to act correctly; they were only confident about their sexuality. However, the identification of these two categories in their case leads to confusion, the reasons for which are both the conservative views of society and the developed uncertainty of these two heroes.
In fact, the father always limited the manifestation of the main character’s true sexuality, which made her doubt her own identity from childhood. As a result, their adaptation to society became more complicated, thoroughly saturated with attempts to answer unasked questions to her father. Bruce was very fond of fiction, and Alison went to college for this specialty. The undisclosed identity of her father gnaws at Alison, but she openly declares her sexual preferences while her father keeps it a secret all his life. As a result, the reader sees that a closed life that hides proper gender roles is detrimental to the person himself, but the book does not provide more specific answers.
Alison shows the development of her sexuality through entries in her children’s diary and excerpts from communication with peers. Her first sexual experience is with her girlfriend, Joan. Likewise, the father hid his secret about his first sexual adventures with peers and the army. Alison obsessively thinks she is doing the wrong thing, guided by more conservative attitudes and possible judgments. Although she will declare her own orientation in defiance of her father, she will still be held by uncertainty in her actions. It is precise because she will never know her father’s motives for keeping his experience a secret. After all, he was guided not only by accepted public opinion. The development of sexuality, as a result, stumbles upon unexpected experiences that generate both interest and fear. All identity suffers from these mysteries, becoming a seemingly dependent variable on sexuality.
Conclusion
In fact, these two categories can significantly influence each other, but it is impossible to identify them. Alison achieves catharsis in accepting her sexuality, she can openly declare this, but identity continues to search, further forming a personality. These further steps led to the fact that Bruce was forced to hide his experience, entrusting it only to his daughter. These further steps also led her father to commit suicide, which in the reflection on Alison’s heroine, added to her fear of whether the same awaits her in the end. This fear makes Alison confess her sexuality, but he does not leave her further. New questions arise; Alison does not know whether to blame herself for her father’s deliberate suicide. He wanted to fulfill his need to demonstrate femininity through her. However, it is very likely that he wanted the best for his daughter, who will find her calling in life, regardless of his actions. He destroyed access to his identity along with the power he had over his daughter.
Finally, an equally important question appears in the following context. Alison would not have been born if Bruce had not suppressed his sexuality by forming such a conflicting identity. This fact shows that every decision in life, regardless of a person’s sexuality and identity, has its pluses and minuses. Sooner or later, even the father opened the veil of his secrets for his daughter. It turns out that honesty is the key to the absence of conflicts, and the lack of answers to many questions is either a matter of time or a matter of importance. Alison continues her life the way she wants, and sooner or later, she will be able to achieve solutions to her problems. Some of them appeared because of the father, but he corrected many of them. If the heroes were able to decide on sexuality, then the identity remained dynamic until the very end of the work, both in the heroes’ eyes and within them.
Reference List
Bechdel, A. (2007). Fun home: A family tragicomic. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.