Alison Bechdel Essays

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Fun Home

The introduction of the novel – or long form narrative prose in general – granted the writer a unique, widened canvas on which to blend rhetoric and art. Here, the writer is invited to both persuade and entertain, sometimes veiling one with the...

College

Fun Home

The graphic novel Fun Home by Alison Bechdel opens with a series of panels portraying how she and her father used to play airplane. At the same time, Bechdel makes a connection between them playing airplane and the myth of Icarus and Daedalus. It...

College

Fun Home

Although Alison Bechdel tells an emotional story in her graphic memoir Fun Home, she also grounds various important plot points about identity construction in mythology. In this way, she is able to articulate the complex and often contradictory...

College

Fun Home

Fun Home is an autobiographical graphic novel by American author and cartoonist Alison Bechdel. It follows the story of her maturation, growing up in Pennsylvania, moving out of the house, and coming to terms with her sexuality. In the process,...

College

Fun Home

Every coming out story must deal with the characters’ struggles of being in the closet. The stage of not yet being able to be open about one’s identity can be the most difficult and turbulent point in dealing with their queer identity. It is a...

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Fun Home

Ambiguity is present within every language as every word can be interpreted slightly differently. In literature, complex ideas are often indirectly depicted through the use of metaphors and symbols. Likewise, images also possess a sense of...

College

Fun Home

In Alison Bechdel’s “tragicomic” graphic novel Fun Home, the author combines the traditional forms of the Bildungsromanwith the more contentious form of the graphic novel in order to apply a literary analysis to her own life. The result is a...

College

Fun Home

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home has the polished surface appearance of a charming comic about a young girl’s coming of age and struggles with self-identity. Bechdel’s strong personal voice emanates from the text with a captivating candor that renders ...