Joanne Haggar: Fun Home Part 1

When I first flipped through this book I was surprised and kind of excited that it was a comic book! However, after reading the first half, I do not think its that exciting anymore. There is alot of emotion going on in this book between the main character and the father. Also, the author uses a lot of big words, which is usually not the case with comic books! :-/ The first part that stood out to me was two seperate quotes that go along with the same theme. The first quotes comes from the first page of the book: ""It was discomfort well worth the rare physical contact, and certainly worth the moment of perfect balance when I soared above him" (3). And the next quote comes from the a few pages in: "My brothers and i couldn't compete with the astral lamps and girandoles and hepplewhite suite chairs. They were perfect" (14). These two quotes really hint at how the girl feels about her father and how she wishes it could be different. Her father does not give him the attention he craves and makes her feel like she is not perfect, which makes me really sad. Next, I found it interesting how after her fathers death she talks about a time when her father asked her to come into the embalming room to hand him scissors and how she goes on to analyze that moment. She says, " I have made use of the former technique myself, however, this attempt to access emotion vicariously. ('my dad's dead. He jumped in front of a truck") (45). This kind of relates back to her relationship with her father. She never felt good enough for her father and she never got any attention from her father. The fact that she over analyzes this moment shows that she longed for more time with him. And by saying "my dad's dead. he jumped in front of a truck" in a no big deal kind of way she is kind of pushing back her emotions because they are too painful to talk about.