Layers of Realism in Bechdel's "Fun Home"

     

       Alison Bechdel incorporates very personal style and evidence from real life in her graphic novel Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic to bring the nonfiction piece to life.

            Photos (35), letters (49, 62), and dictionary entries (57) can be found throughout the novel's panels, adding more realism and a sense that "This really happened" to her work. These additions of real-world evidence bring the story very much to life in a way that drawings alone might otherwise not. It's easy to forget when looking at a comic that the content goes a lot deeper than the images; with the addition of all these indicators to the real world, it becomes harder to mistake the characters as fictional.

            The repetition of varying scenes, most prominently the confession of Bechdel's mother that the artist's father had been having affairs with young men, the call that her father was dead, and the actual moment of his death, are repeated a few times within the novel. This circling back to previous events reflects the disjointedness of memory, giving the story another layer of reality. The very timeline of the novel reflects how memory works. In real life, when we think of something in the past, we don't just think of that one thing. We think of several connected events or relationships, often thinking of important events more than once as they act as a sort of focal point to the overall theme, bringing us back again and again. In this case, those pivot points would be Bechdel learning about her father's sexuality after admitting her own, the moment when she found out he'd died, and his actual moment of death, the three most repeated scenes. Since Fun Home primarily deals with Bechdel and her father's sexuality as well as their relationship and the latter's death, it makes sense that these moments would keep reappearing.

            Even the tone works in bringing Bechdel's very specific, personal story to another level of realism. Her cold, distant, sophisticated way of speaking shows the type of family she grew up in as much as the scenes she chooses to portray. She often chooses sophisticated references or word choice over simplicity, such as when comparing herself to her father: "I was Spartan to my father's Athenian. Modern to his Victorian. Butch to his Nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete" (15). The fact that the part in which she narrates this takes places when she was a child, too, comes off as strange at first. But being brought up by two artists and teachers, her father having a strong interest in everything literary and everything being perfect, it's little wonder she speaks with such finesse. The fact that she makes two historical references (her father being a fanatic of historical restoration, and how he eventually dies as he restores an old farm) and a reference to nicknames for people who dress opposite to their biological gender (both Bechdel and her father being gay) gives heavy foreshadowing of what is to come as well as revealing her father's further influence on her. This detached, yet almost trademark style of speaking is reflective of her upbringing, serving to show yet another layer of thought given to the way Bechdel decided to tell her story. 

Use of Dialogue to Portray Characters

            In Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet uses dialogue and nuances of written language as a way of conveying characters' personalities, relying minimally on actions and stage directions.

            Through the way each character speaks, readers are able to discern his characteristics. For instance, we can tell from the very beginning that Levene is rather desperate and bad at trying to convince Williamson of something, which we can assume carries over into his personal work. His first lines are, "John...John...John. Okay. John. John" (15). The ellipses convey Levene's emphasis and way of speaking while the repetition of Williamson's name indicates that Levene is trying to convince him of something. The repetition of Williamson's first name is meant to make him feel closer to Levene, as though they are personal friends. However, this much repetition in actual dialogue tends to irritate rather than soothe the person being addressed, suggesting that Levene might not be very good at persuading others. Through his continuing dialogue, readers are able to see more of these characteristics of Levene, as well as his way of thinking: he's stuck in the past, always talking about how he was an amazing salesman and "Those guys lived on the business I brought in" (22). He isn't able to keep up in today's cutthroat business, and it shows in the way he fails at persuasion, evident through the way he talks.

            Roma, on the other hand, is shown through dialogue to be a smooth talker and fast thinker. When Lingk comes into the office, Roma knows immediately that it's to cancel their contract and so devises a last second plan with Levene in order to get away and avoid Lingk's request for a refund. He starts talking to Leven about Lingk's property, describing it as "Beautiful. Beautiful rolling land" (79). Here, Roma enunciates "beautiful" and repeats it in a far more effective and enticing manner than Levene earlier tried with Williamson. By describing the land Lingk has already signed for to another seemingly interested customer, he is trying to make the land seem all the more popular and appealing. Roma is subtle about persuasion, making him a more effective salesman than Levene. When he originally started the deal with Lingk, he started talking about philosophy and drew Lingk's interest slowly, disarmingly. His dialogue shows his cunning and how he is able to think on his feet.

            If Lingk were more assertive, he might've fallen for Roma's trap to make him change his mind about cancelling the contract, but, as shown through dialogue, he is submissive to his wife's orders. He says, "She wants her money back" and "She told me I have to" (90). Lingk doesn't say "We want our money back," but rather that it is his wife's money. In his mind, he doesn't have a say in the matter or the money itself. He also takes his wife's word as absolute, putting emphasis on having to do what she says. For him, there is no choice but to listen to what she says.

            There are minimal stage directions, and those present are mostly used for showing people leaving or entering the scene. Generally, a playwright would use actions to convey what a character is feeling or thinking, whether through something subtle like body language or something more obvious such as pacing or throwing a prop. However, Mamet's expert use of dialogue handles this on its own. The reader is hardly, if ever, left in question about a character's state of mind, emotions, or characteristics. 

Nagrai Slipper Ashtray in Jhumpa Lahiri's "Unaccustomed Earth"

            For some reason, the section in which Ruma's father is talking about his former addiction to smoking, and how Ruma kept his small, brass nagrai slipper ashtray afterwards to play with despite the fact that she was vehemently opposed to his smoking (21), stuck out to me.

            I've been trying to figure out what it is about the ashtray that was so important to Ruma as a child. It's mentioned several times in the story, from both her perspective and her father's, that she wasn't really close to him growing up. Maybe the fact that she kept something that she viewed as so loved by her father was out of jealousy, because she wanted to be taken notice of as much as he gave attention to the ashtray.

            It could also be seen as a sort of trophy of Ruma's, that she won out over her father's smoking addiction despite the fact that, "He had done nothing, back then, to comfort her; he'd maintained his addiction in spite of his daughter's fear" (21). Maybe she wanted to keep the ashtray as a reminder of the fact that even though he doesn't seem to care sometimes, he does think of her.

            There's a mention that she plays with the slipper by pretending it's Cinderella's, but that it never fits over her dolls' plastic feet. I've been trying to think of what this symbolism means, but I feel like what I came up with might be a stretch. The ashtray is in the shape of a nagrai slipper, which is Indian, and could represent India in this instance. Cinderella is an Americanized fairy tale. Perhaps this is symbolic of Ruma's attempt as a child to integrate her Indian heritage with the American life she finds herself surrounded by, trying to force one onto the other, much like Cinderella's slipper itself. Her mother especially tried to force values of India on her daughter, which apparently don't stick or work out [such as when her mother tried and failed to teach her to read and write in Bengali (59)], which can be seen as another view of Cinderella's story. Despite her mother's best efforts, Indian traditions and values don't fit Ruma; she can't be her parents' Cinderella.

            Another way to look at it could be that Ruma wants to be Cinderella herself. Despite her independence and American lifestyle, she wants to fulfill certain parts of her parents' wishes and expectations, as can be seen by the fact that she never tries to argue with her father in order to keep their "already frail bond" intact (37). She comments throughout the story on what her mother and father would want or think of her, both now and in the past, and how she feels she's either failed or succeeded in their expectations. At points, it's clear she wants to please them, at other times, more ambiguous. But if we think of her as holding herself to their standards, it becomes easier to see why she might want to be able to wear the metaphorical slipper in order to please them.

            I tried to see if there was any special significance to nagrai slippers in India, or any instance when they're especially worn, but I couldn't find anything. So I think I've settled on the ashtray being a symbol of her trying to reconcile her Indian heritage with her American lifestyle.