More Than A House
What if a house was more than a home? What if it was treated more importantly than the people in it? Alison Bechdel, an American cartoonist, explores this idea in her autobiographical “tragicomic”, Fun Home. Born in the 1960’s, Bechdel was raised in a time where coming out was much harder than it is now. Coming out as gay had the potential detrimental to one’s career, relationships, and all-around life. She writes her memoir about her life, her experience of finding out she is a lesbian, and her memories of her neglectful, closeted father. In Bechdel’s memoir, her father, (and an essentially closeted gay man,) Bruce Bechdel is obsessive over the condition and aesthetic of his home. Everything has to be dusted, even …show more content…
He wasn’t emotionally prepared for it. Although he knew he had a responsibility to care for and provide for his children, the want to be emotionally present to them was lacking. Alison touches on this fact with several examples. One can see the lack of attachment between Bruce and Alison in as early as the second page of the memoir, when Alison, shown as a young child at the time, was trying to play “Airplane” with her father, when he instead focused more on the dirt on the rug he was laying on, and sent Alison to get the vacuum cleaner, cutting their game of “Airplane” off almost as soon as it began. He has his family help him keep up this hobby because, subconsciously, he feels like maybe they owe it to him. Because his children take over his life, he lets his house take over his children at times. Bruce’s house acts as a distraction from his life as a father. If he constantly has something to do, such as installing a new chandelier, planting a new tree, or picking out a fresher wallpaper for the living room, he won’t have to be emotionally present to his children, but he’ll still feel validated as a father in the idea that he is making the home nicer for his family as well as himself. He still feels the need to present himself as a good father, because he is entirely superficial, and keeping a clean environment for his family to live in fills that
What if a house was more than a home? What if it was treated more importantly than the people in it? Alison Bechdel, an American cartoonist, explores this idea in her autobiographical “tragicomic”, Fun Home. Born in the 1960’s, Bechdel was raised in a time where coming out was much harder than it is now. Coming out as gay had the potential detrimental to one’s career, relationships, and all-around life. She writes her memoir about her life, her experience of finding out she is a lesbian, and her memories of her neglectful, closeted father. In Bechdel’s memoir, her father, (and an essentially closeted gay man,) Bruce Bechdel is obsessive over the condition and aesthetic of his home. Everything has to be dusted, even …show more content…
He wasn’t emotionally prepared for it. Although he knew he had a responsibility to care for and provide for his children, the want to be emotionally present to them was lacking. Alison touches on this fact with several examples. One can see the lack of attachment between Bruce and Alison in as early as the second page of the memoir, when Alison, shown as a young child at the time, was trying to play “Airplane” with her father, when he instead focused more on the dirt on the rug he was laying on, and sent Alison to get the vacuum cleaner, cutting their game of “Airplane” off almost as soon as it began. He has his family help him keep up this hobby because, subconsciously, he feels like maybe they owe it to him. Because his children take over his life, he lets his house take over his children at times. Bruce’s house acts as a distraction from his life as a father. If he constantly has something to do, such as installing a new chandelier, planting a new tree, or picking out a fresher wallpaper for the living room, he won’t have to be emotionally present to his children, but he’ll still feel validated as a father in the idea that he is making the home nicer for his family as well as himself. He still feels the need to present himself as a good father, because he is entirely superficial, and keeping a clean environment for his family to live in fills that