“Fun Home”: Alison Bechdel (part 2)
(as stated in my previous post, this will be about chapters 5-7 in “Fun Home”)
In these last chapters of “Fun Home”, it seemed to slightly have strayed away from talking about her father, or at least there was a significant decrease in how much she talked about him. Although she didn’t mention him as often, Bechdel said something that caught my eye when reading.
She mentions a dream she had where she was with her dad. She saw a sunset and tried showing her father, however he didn’t make it in time. Whether it was a coincidence or some notification, this easily represents the upcoming death of her father (because the dream was days prior to his death).
Further on, she presents how she had OCD, which she later says it was a phase of sorts. What I got out of seeing Bechdel’d OCD is that she was being a perfectionist in her own way. She was trying to be perfect in her eyes even though her dad was trying to make her perfect in his eyes.
After reading chapter 6, a small, theme so-to-say, occurred, and that was that everything seemed to be breaking in a sense. Such as the chaos she describes when she began hitting puberty. Along with the court case her father had since he gave an alcoholic beverage to minor. On top of that, one of the pictures shows the mom smoking. However, she hasn’t done this prior to that part of the book. This leads me to believe that she is undergoing stress, which further assists my assumption that everything is breaking.
As for chapter 7, I could describe it using the word “discovery”. Not just for Bechdel, but for the reader as well. Such as Bechdel learning what the word ‘gay’ properly meant. She had believed that it meant being a bum for the rest of your life. A little further she states and reveals to the reader how her fathead AIDS, and that if he didn’t die, AIDS surely would’ve gotten him. Not only that, she presents the time that she first figures out that she is a lesbian.
Although I don’t like reading, this was a nice and interesting book to read. Who knew a simple comic like book could do so much?