Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Fun Home
At first flip through of "Fun Home" the reader, or at least me, gets a very wrong impression. A book that is entirely a comic? Sweet! However, upon reading the first couple lines of this text, the image portrayed is not one of fun and humorous. I immediately got a sense of longing for a different relationship between Alison and her father, as well as a sense of resentment. The first passage that stood out to me was when the narrator is comparing her life to that of the movie It's a Wonderful Life: "but in the movie when Jimmy Stewart comes home one night and starts yelling at everyone...it's out of the ordinary." (11) I think the reason this passage stood out to me was because I could really feel the resentment she had towards her father. She is basically his labor slave, helping him restore their house every moment, yet he yells at his family any chance he gets-even if they have done what he has asked. I could not picture a home life like this, and start feeling a lot of compassion for the narrator at this point of the story. The next passage that stood out to me was when Alison and John first see each other after the news of their father's death. "My little brother John and I greeted each other with ghastly, uncontrollable grins." (46) There are obvious reasons this passage stood out to me: why are they grinning after just losing their father? It makes me wonder whether it is because they are actually happy that he is gone, or that they are grieving but do not know how to show their emotions for the situation. This passage also makes me feel more compassion for the narrator and her siblings, because they are so mixed up in their home life. Each passage of this text brings about more shock to me, and makes it hard to relate what is going on the story.
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When the dad is constantly yelling and berating his family, I feel it could be sort of a displaced anger type thing. As the story goes on, you find out the man is basically living a lie, so I would assume that he is generally unhappy in his day to day life. I definitely agree that the children did not learn how to show their emtions. They grew up playing in a funeral home, so death is something they are more at peace with, but it is still odd that they wouldn't even really grieve the loss of their father.
ReplyDeleteI had the same feeling when reading your first selection. I honestly feel that she has a lot of resentment towards her father and she needed to get everything off her chest, which is why she created this text. I think we have to ask, is the father really mad at the family? Or is he mad at himself/ not happy with himself and is taking it out on others?
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