Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts

Semester End Evaluation (Fresh/Regular/Current Semester) Oct/Nov-2022

Course: B.A./B.Sc. Liberal Arts Date: 13th November, 2022

Subject: Socialization and Sexuality
Faculty: Sonia Kurup and Richa Minocha
Evaluation Type: SEE (Home Assignment)
Deadline for Submission: 4th December
Total Marks: 25 (4 Credit) / 15 (2 Credit)

Instructions:
● Do not submit Hard-copies of the assignments.
● Submit the Soft-copies of the assignment on the link shared by the exam department only.
Do not submit the softcopies to the faculty directly.
● No extension of time will be allowed for any reason whatsoever.
● This question paper must be added in the beginning of your assignment.
● Do not plagiarize.
● Please mention your Name and PRN on the assignment properly.

Questions:

Write an essay/book review on the graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison
Bechdel. The same should be attempted drawing upon some of the relevant concepts or theories
discussed in class such as family as a site of socialization, the construction of bodies, sex, and
gender identities, feminist thought, and theory, or queer theory. The essay/book review should be
written in words not exceeding 2000.

Evaluation: The assignment will be graded based on how well the student is able to
incorporate some of the concepts and theories in their analysis of the text and their original critical
reflections.
Book review on-

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

by Alison Bechdel
- Riya Banthia
21060322124

About the Author

Alison Bechdel, the author, narrator and protagonist of the story, is a cartoonist who was
raised in the little community of Beech Creek after being born in Lock Haven,
Pennsylvania. Her best-selling graphic memoir of 2006, "Fun Home: A Family
Tragicomic," about her relationship with her father was illustrated by her to consider why
her life's events transpired in the manner they did. The fundamental message of her work
is heavily influenced by her sexuality and gender non-conformity, and she has stated that
"the secret subversive goal of my work is to show that women, not just lesbians, are regular
human beings." Bechdel adheres to the Feminist idea, which promotes individual respect
and is a strong proponent of complete social, economic, and political equality for all
genders.

Summary
This book chronicles Bechdel's childhood and youth, concentrating on her complicated
family dynamics with her father. Bechdel centres the story around the sorrowful occasion
of her father's passing. She resided in an old Gothic Revival home (funeral home) with her
mother (Helen), her father (Bruce), and two younger brothers named Christian and John.
Bruce and Helen had been living in Europe, but after Bruce's father passed away, they were
compelled to return to the funeral home. Bruce scrupulously maintained and improved the
old Gothic revival mansion that belonged to the family. Alison and her brothers
volunteered as kids at the funeral home, which they affectionately referred to as the "Fun
Home"; the book's title.

The Bechdels' home was a source of tension and anxiety due to Bruce's chilly and hostile
connection with his wife and children and unpredictable moods. Alison has always wanted
to dress up like a boy, and as she reaches puberty, she realises that she is attracted to
women. When reading the books at 19, Alison came out to her parents as a lesbian. Soon
after coming out, Alison finds out from her mother that Bruce has always had relationships
with men and boys. She is surprised to find that her mother has known about Bruce's
adultery for their whole relationship. Soon after Alison confessed, Helen informed her
daughter that she had requested a divorce from Bruce.

Two weeks later, Bruce was killed, struck by a Sunbeam Bread truck as he crossed the
street. Alison points to several specific events and facts as proof that her father's death was
likely a suicide. She regrets that he passed away before she could adequately discuss his
sexuality and the subsequent humiliation he felt with him. As a result, Fun Home tracks
Alison's quest to comprehend the complexity of Bruce's secret existence and his reasons,
particularly in light of how they relate to her own.
Themes
This book showcases gender, the coming out process, identity, sex, the social construction
of bodies, and much more. One of the major themes of this graphic memoir is Gender
Identity and Coming of age.

Alison's father and she have a lot in common: Even though the father is married to his
spouse and closeted gay for the entirety of the biography, they share a love of reading and
the arts and wish they had been born the other sex. Despite these commonalities, they
never manage to develop a close, intimate friendship because of their reserved dispositions
and differences in gendered loyalties. Alison acknowledges that she has always been "a
connoisseur of masculinity" (95), unlike Bruce, who frequently exhibits traditionally
thought of as feminine characteristics. Thus, despite the fact that they are very similar,
there is much conflict between the two characters due to their different gender alignments.

As Alison reaches adulthood, she struggles with her lesbian gender identity and how it
differs from the expectations society has for her. As she matures, Alison experiences a
pervasive and increasing sense of shame that is primarily caused by how she feels about
the world and her own feminine body. She was being forced to the feminine side by the
social construct. She also wanted her father to assume a role he was not, even as a small
child enduring her father's attempts to make her into someone she was not. In "a conflict
of cross-purposes," Alison, a tomboyish daughter, says she is attempting to make up for
her father's "unmanly" qualities.

Due to his background in a society where homosexuality is stigmatised, Bruce has had to
maintain his sexuality a secret, which is ascribed to his reclusive and volatile personality.
According to the memoir, Bruce's suicidal act of rushing in front of a truck was brought on
by his suppressed personality, his wife's request for a divorce, and the fact that Alison
could live an open life as a lesbian, but he could not. Bruce was worried about being
stigmatised by society for his sexual orientation, which led him to force Alison into being
more feminine while growing up, even though he knew she did not want that.

In an effort to make his daughter act more girly and appear more ladylike, Bruce plays the
role of society's enforcer. The memoir, however, makes it abundantly clear that Alison's
father's strong desire for his daughter to behave like a typical girl is motivated not only by
"conservative" principles but also by the fact that, like his daughter, Bruce's own gender
identity is "non-standard," and he needs to express his own femininity through her in a
way that she cannot.

Another significant theme that can be emphasised is Repression vs Openness. Two

contrasting coming-of-age tales concerning individuals coping with homosexuality and
genderqueer identification are depicted in Fun Home. The way Alison and Bruce deal with
their gender identity in adulthood is the opposite. However, both stories start and evolve
similarly—with lies, shame, self-deceit, and secret episodes of self-fulfilment (like dressing
up in the other gender's clothing). Since Fun Home is an open and honest illustration of
Alison's compulsion for autobiography, this leads to Alison living a more honest,
self-fulfilling existence, which helps her improve upon or minimise many compulsions or
at least allows her to deal with them more openly and honestly. However, Bruce is unable
to shake his own obsessive and destructive tendencies. This manifests in various ways,
from his relentless and controlling decorating of the family's old Gothic mansion to his
sporadic but regular fits of rage to the series of extramarital affairs he has with some of his
male high school English students to his eventual (probable) suicide.

Alison Bechdel's examination of her own lesbian sexuality throughout Fun Home is
contrasted with her father, Bruce's repressed gay or bisexual desire. Despite the fact that
the contrast between openness and repression in the book is specifically related to sexual
orientation and gender identity, the book is also a powerful depiction of the impact of
repression, more generally, the way that shame can motivate a person to hide that shame,
and then how hiding that shame can, in turn, create complicated and self-destructive
behaviours.

The following are some additional topics that appear in this book: Fiction and Reality,
Understanding Life Through Literature, Sexual orientation, Art as a Replacement for Life,
Drawings of Words, Death and Tragicomic and Artifice.

Characters
The two main characters were-

Alison recounts her life from childhood into early adulthood, focusing on her observations
on the events surrounding the passing of her father, Bruce and the development of her
knowledge of her lesbian sexuality and propensity for masculinity. Throughout the graphic
memoir, Alison is honest and upfront about wanting to dress and act like a boy. She also
describes how the pressure of her non-conformity to social expectations causes her to
develop many strange compulsive behaviours as a child, including rituals, superstitions,
and a propensity for autobiography.

Alison was unaware of many facets of Bruce's (possibly suicidal) life as a youngster, such as
his covert homosexuality or bisexuality and a succession of extramarital romances. At the
same time, he married Helen, Alison's mother. Bruce's tale might be thought of as Alison's
polar opposite. Bruce never openly explored or acknowledged his sexuality or identity,
whereas she ultimately did. Instead, he constructed a wall around himself, using it as a
place to hide or confine himself.

Tones
She shares with her readers how she overcame adversity and that there is hope for those
who battle similar issues. The motivation behind Alison's narrative is clear from her tone.
Her tone and voice might be regarded as official but lively and amusing. She uses strong,
evocative phrases to describe her story in as few words as possible. The sentences are
typically brief and to the point, again helpful in conveying her story in just a few lines. She
lets the rest be explained through her drawings.

Imagery
Every page of Bechdel's memoir contains images because it is an illustrated book. She also
employs various imagery to arouse the reader's senses. She explains, for instance, how it
felt when her father bathed her. This example of tactile imagery is how Bechdel skillfully
invokes the separation between her younger self and her father. Bechdel also employs
audio images to illustrate how far away from civilization the Bechdels' house felt.

Literary Devices
Alsion tried to illustrate numerous points by employing metaphors and similes. Bechdel
describes how her father frequently treated her and her siblings as inanimate objects that
he could manipulate, failing to listen to them or consider their needs in the Robot Arms
Simile. Bechdel also employs the bishop comparison to illustrate how she had to exercise
caution around her father because of his unpredictable moods and violent outbursts.
Bechdel alludes to the fact that she is more willing to explore her identity than her father,
who will not recognise any relationship with this gender-bending stranger by comparing
herself to a wanderer. Bechdel compares her father's attempt to conceal his homosexuality
beneath a polished appearance to the creek that gives its name, Beech Creek. Because of
pollution from the nearby strip mines, the brook was only "crystal pure," as she claims
(128). Additionally, she compares the storm to Bruce Bechdel's run-ins with the law and, in
a broader sense, to how her father's secret caused havoc among the family.

Allegory
As an analogy for her connection with her father, Bechdel creates a story based on the
myth of Icarus and Daedalus. She compares Bruce Bechdel's concealment of his sexuality
to Icarus' arrogance; his refusal to embrace himself brought him plunging toward his
doom. At the book's conclusion, she returns to the allegory and contrasts her father with
Icarus. She ponders that he fell into the water, proving that at least he was there to grab
her when she fell. This demonstrates that Bechdel, despite his flaws, has come to embrace
her father for who he was.

Main Conflict
Alison and her identity, as well as Alison and her father, are the main characters in the
book's struggle. The book makes it abundantly clear that leading a closed life while
concealing one's true gender identity is extremely harmful. However, it also makes it clear
that leading an open life that is in line with one's internal self can be frightening and
dangerous if doing so goes against societal expectations. The book also discusses the
complex relationship between gender and biological sex.

After all, Alison would not have existed if Bruce had not concealed his gender identity and
wed Alison's mother. Bruce had to suppress his sexuality in order for Alison to survive. Her
existence depended on his pain, which perfectly encapsulated the occasionally
unresolvable conflict between sexual nature and gender identity. The book does not
provide answers to these problems, but by accurately depicting their complexity, it offers
honesty.