Redeeming in the Present the Failures of Our Hidden History: Towards a Theory of Acceptance in Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home"

Abstract

"Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" (2006) is a compilation of Alison Bechdel’s obsessive need to understand the true identity of her father; an attempt to find the truth of Bruce Bechdel’s death. The author also explores and exorcizes the stigma and shame that homosexual people have endured, and revitalizes the present proposing two antagonistic visions of living and inserting sexuality into one’s identity. In her effort to understand and cope with the death of her father, Alison Bechdel explores in her first memoir the themes of sexual discovery and sexual acceptance between the boundaries of repression and liberation, between the shameful past and the healing pride. Thus, this paper revises the lack of self-acceptance in the life of both characters (Alison and Bruce Bechdel) through the lenses of psycho-social analysis, queer theory and feminism, in order to dissociate the family heresy of stigmas of father and daughter bear through shared texts (based on Alison’s discover of her father’s closeted past, and her present celebration of her lesbian self through literature). In doing so, different theories by Erving Goffman, Judith Butler, Michael Foucault, Monique Wittig among others will be revised in order to connect them with Bechdel’s graphic novel.