During the first half of Alison Bechdel's, "Fun Home," I really got a sense of resentment that Alison had towards her father. Her dad often cared more about restoring their home than about his own children. One quote that proved this was, "And of course, my brothers and I were free labor. Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like precision robot arms." Most of the book he hardly even paid attention to any of his kids, he only saw them as his own little workers who were there only to do chores, and not as human beings. Another thing that stuck out to me is when Alison recalled parts of her childhood and her Father's love of gardening, she said "What kind of man but a sissy could possibly love flowers this ardently?"Although her Dad was quite feminine, I think that this feeds into the stereotype that only women are meant to enjoy some things and only men are meant to enjoy others. A lot of times society makes it seem shameful to like feminine things, especially in this case, with flowers, because pretty much all of the time flowers are only suppose to be associated with women. Who cares if he likes to garden? Does this really make him a "sissy" just because he is a man?
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I almost blogged about your first quote as well. There were so many passages that stood out to me it was hard to choose from. It makes me so sad to think that Alison and her siblings felt this was their only worth to their father, to help him with labor. This makes me wonder if Alison was bound to feel resentment about anything else he did not matter what it was, because she had always been his labor slave.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both of you about how his children were his free labor. If a child grows up with the only connection to their father is them being his labor slave then of course its going to lead to resentment. It is like the father uses his children and doesn't give them anything in return, especially love. Also the part about the flowers, that is an interesting thing to think about but it is so true how society tells us what is acceptable for girls and guys to like and associate with.
ReplyDeleteI was also saddened by the relationship between Alison and her father. When reading the first part of this text, I got the sense that this was a very awkward and uncomfortable situation. Her father barely speaks to her unless he is requesting something of her - there is no actual bond between the two. To me, this suggests that Alison lacked a true father figure in her life. I was stunned by her lack of emotion in response to her father's death. I also I wonder if this is why she later on became so skeptical of her sexuality. Do you think there is a connection here?
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