Tragicomic Fun Home Analysis

In her family tragicomic Fun Home, author and cartoonist Alison Bechdel writes about her dysfunctional family, struggles with her sexuality, and her relationship with her father. In the fourth chapter of her book, Bechdel illustrates the similarities between herself and her father, Bruce Bechdel. Her discovery of her Dad’s hidden photos reveals the underlying secrets that she and he both share. This discovery also identifies the characteristics that translate from Bruce to Alison Bechdel such as cross-dressing. She uses the word “translation” to illustrate her argument that Bechdel is more like her father than she believes. She guides the reader toward seeing the homosexuality being translated from Bruce to herself by employing artistic effects, …show more content…
She eases into her revelations by only showing one photo in the first panel – a photo of someone in a bathing suit. Her reason for this is to allow readers to speculate about who is in the photo. One would assume that it is her father, Bruce, since she previously mentioned finding photos of him; nevertheless, that is hard to believe initially (120). The photo Bechdel illustrates from her memory appears to be a woman, in a bathing suit and head scarf, posing for a photo shoot. This is exactly what Bechdel wants a reader to believe. A woman dressed up in women’s clothing to take a photo, nothing appears out of ordinary with that analysis. That initial misconception clarifies itself in the first narrative box when Bechdel says “he’s wearing a women’s bathing suit” (120). Her use of the possessive nouns “he’s” and “women’s” shows that it was a man dressed in women’s attire in the photo (120). Those contrasting pronouns cause an emotional reaction from a reader such as confusion, disgust, or curiosity. A reader may react with “A man should not be wearing women’s clothing!”, “Why is he wearing a woman’s bathing suit?!?!”, or “Wow, that’s a man in women’s clothing – interesting.” The first two reactions are justifiable