In terms of the Family Romance, I'm constantly having to refer back to the piece because I'm not sure I can use it as a reference for Fun Home in terms of the "motive of revenge or retaliation" that a child holds towards his/her parents when growing up/understanding the dynamics between family members. I find that Bruce shows more of those child symptoms towards his family members because he has to hide the real him due to his own/others homophobia. I'm just not sure how to depict that role-reversal between Fun Home and Family Romance.
However, the ONE thing I thought I want to use is on page 40 of Family Romance is:
"Indeed, the whole effort to replace the real father by another who is more distinguished is merely an expression of the child's longing for the happy time gone by, when his father seemed to him the strongest and most distinguished men, and his mother the dearest and loveliest of women. He turns away from the man he now knows as his father to the one he believed in as a child."
I strictly like this quote because I can see how Alison wanted to tell her story to symbolicly "kill her dead father" and move on because despite being a not so warm or gentle father, she was accustomed to that version of her father (strict, intelligent, and experienced man) as opposed to the "big sissy" who had a lifelong and far reaching secret (gay, shady, suicidal).
A second brick wall I'm hitting is how to talk about the relationship between graphic novel and memoir (text and image). I'm not sure how to explain it but I do agree/see how images when rightfully organized can enhance the telling of a story. I feel like the author would need the perfect still shot scene/portrait to have it work hand-in-hand with the story.
Lastly, I have one question about Fun Home. On page 82, the scene where Alison and her girlfriend, Joan, return to her home over the summer to visit Helen Bechdel after Bruce's passing. Helen was getting rid of books from Bruce's library and offered Joan to take a book and not "just pick a paperback. Take something good." Joan picked up one by Wallace Stevens which Joan had said was a great pick and proceeded to quote a line from it; Alison narrates that the quote was about crucifixion. Joan decides to decline the book after Helen was done.
Anyway, I just want to know if Joan declined because as Alison pointed out what the quote was about, that Helen had sort of insulted her with the quote because she was aiming it towards the fact that Joan is a lesbian and it's her way of disapproving it. Or did Joan decline because Helen seemed to really like the book and Joan thought it'd be better if she kept it?
A second brick wall I'm hitting is how to talk about the relationship between graphic novel and memoir (text and image). I'm not sure how to explain it but I do agree/see how images when rightfully organized can enhance the telling of a story. I feel like the author would need the perfect still shot scene/portrait to have it work hand-in-hand with the story.
Lastly, I have one question about Fun Home. On page 82, the scene where Alison and her girlfriend, Joan, return to her home over the summer to visit Helen Bechdel after Bruce's passing. Helen was getting rid of books from Bruce's library and offered Joan to take a book and not "just pick a paperback. Take something good." Joan picked up one by Wallace Stevens which Joan had said was a great pick and proceeded to quote a line from it; Alison narrates that the quote was about crucifixion. Joan decides to decline the book after Helen was done.
Anyway, I just want to know if Joan declined because as Alison pointed out what the quote was about, that Helen had sort of insulted her with the quote because she was aiming it towards the fact that Joan is a lesbian and it's her way of disapproving it. Or did Joan decline because Helen seemed to really like the book and Joan thought it'd be better if she kept it?
To answer your last question first, I read it as Joan declining that book after realizing how significant the book/poem was to Helen. I'm also not sure that I see it as a slight to Joan that Helen picks out a poem with an ostensible Christian theme. This for two reasons: I think Helen is worried about Allison's homosexuality because of her experience with Bruce, and not out of deeply held homophobia, nor a religiously influenced idea of it as a "sin." Remember in that same sequence, Allison points out that her mother's Catholicism was "more form than content."
ReplyDeleteAnd also because the poem is not a very traditional take on the crucifixion. Wallace himself saw it as a "pagan" poem which was wistful about the ideas of transcendence embodied in Christianity, but eventually embraces earthly pleasure over heavenly bliss. What is most meaningful in the poem, perhaps, is the line about "the old catastrophe" which Allison uses as chapter heading.
You middle question concerns writing about the book as a visual text. All I really am looking for here is some way that your paper mentions the fact that it is one, and recognizes that the narrative is made of both images and words. So, if you are making a point about some aspect of Bruce Bechdel as a father, you could say something like, "his distance from his family members is even rendered pictorially in scenes which frame him (through a window, etc) as physically separate from everyone else." That's not the greatest point, btw, just an example of how you might bring that into your discussion.
And finally, I think it is fine to work with the idea that Fun Home reworks the family narratives of freud by sometimes reversing the father/child relationship: Bruce as child, Allison as father. Afterall, you are probably making the point that Fun Home is a variation on the Family Romance.
If I missed your point about that last bit, let me know.
Nope, that makes everything I mentioned clear. I got my paper topic now, thank you!
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