Alison and Bruce Bechdel Were Each Other's Inverse
One of the hardest things to ignore about Fun Home is how clearly Alison and Bruce needed each other to be something neither of them could be. They were almost like reversed mirrors. Alison grows up tomboyish, always leaning toward short hair and men's clothing, and Bruce spends his life restoring their Victorian house with this obsessive attention to beauty, to curtains and wallpaper and flowers. Bechdel draws this contrast constantly, but nowhere more clearly than in the barrette scene. Bruce asks young Alison where her barrette is, tells her it keeps the hair out of her eyes, and she fires back at her father, "So would a crewcut" (Bechdel 96). And that is basically their entire relationship shown in those two panels. Bruce is trying to pin femininity onto his daughter, almost literally, and she is already pulling away from it without even thinking about it. Her cousins nickname her "Butch," and she loves it. Meanwhile, Bruce, who holds all this authority in the household, is someone Alison can already see right through. She says it herself: "despite the tyrannical power with which he held sway, it was clear to me that my father was a big sissy" (Bechdel 97). They are both performing gender for each other, and neither of them is doing it because they want to.
What makes this relationship so hard to watch play out is that it is not really about control. It would be easier to read Bruce as a strict father enforcing gender norms just for the sake of it, but Bechdel doesn't make it that simple. Bruce is not enforcing norms he believes in. He is enforcing norms he himself is trapped by. For example, in the wedding scene Alison wants to wear sneakers, Bruce wishes they had a straw hat for her, and the narration says it directly, "while I was trying to compensate for something unmanly in him...he was attempting to express something feminine through me" (Bechdel 98). They were both trying to live through each other. And then there is the pearl necklace moment, where Bruce physically tries to put pearls on Alison and she refuses, and he snaps, "What're you afraid of? Being beautiful?" (Bechdel 99). That line says so much more about Bruce than it does about Alison because he is the one who wants to wear the pearls. He is the one who is afraid. Bechdel calls the whole thing "a war of cross-purposes, and so doomed to perpetual escalation" (Bechdel 98), and that is exactly what it is. Neither of them could ever win because they were not even fighting about the same thing. Bechdel writes that she "wanted the muscles and tweed like my father wanted the velvet and pearls, subjectively, for myself" (Bechdel 99), and that really is the whole tragedy of it. They both just wanted to exist as themselves, and they never once said that out loud to each other.
I also remember the scene where she chose the most tomboyish dress to show her preferences. As for the house decoration, she disliked her father's way of decorating her own room. It is interesting how, even though Alison does not share her father's interests, he still chooses to express himself through her. This kind of shows a lack of allowing her to truly express herself and shows that her father doesn't express himself fully.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great observation about the role of gender in Alison's relationship with her father. I also found it interesting when there was a moment where Alison and Bruce were bonding over their interest in mens' fashion. While their relationship to gender served as a source of conflict for them sometimes, it also served as a source of common ground.
ReplyDeleteThis is an excellent analysis of Alison's analysis of her early years with Bruce as a father, the ways in which they are "reversed mirrors" of one another, and how their apparent conflicts can easily be read as involving unspoken gender anxieties. It's also crucial to remember--and a very complicated dynamic to keep in our minds--that we are simultaneously reading a reconstruction of Alison's experience at the time (I would prefer a crewcut, I don't want to wear barrettes, I don't care if my necklines match, etc.) AND an interpretation of how she NOW understands the dynamic. Presumably, young Alison didn't consciously experience Bruce's domineering approach to her fashion choices as related to her sexual identity or even her gender identity--she doesn't really know WHY she likes it when her cousins nickname her "Butch," and I'm sure they are equally unaware of the resonance of the term. It definitely seems more like a good-natured teasing, like calling her a "tomboy," and she likes the acknowledgement of her emerging gender identity in this way. It's such an interesting and complicated dynamic, and it's amazing to me that these seemingly simple comic-strip frames can contain so many different levels of reality and interpretation at the same time.
ReplyDeleteHey Lynn! I really like the quotes you picked, and they perfectly sum up this aspect of their relationship and how her father may have subconsciously influenced her style. I would like to add another relevant quote to this conversation here, just because I think it helps illuminate how they both break gender roles but in opposite ways: "I was Spartan to my father's Athenian. Butch to his Nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete." I also wanted to bring up an earlier moment in the book where Bechdel starts to recognize her desire to be seen as "manly". I distinctly remember her asking her cousin (?) to introduce her/refer to her with a male name instead (but he doesn't). Anyway, I also think you're right about a core issue in their relationship being their inability to directly talk to each other, and instead communicate through aesthetic choices/recommendations.
ReplyDeleteHi Lynn! I really enjoyed reading your blog! And I like the topic you chose to explore because it was definitely a big conversation during the book. I agree with you that Alison and Bruce are inverses of each other. Great Blog!
ReplyDeleteHi Lynn! You touched on a really heart-wrenching aspect of the novel in this blog post. So much of the conflict between Bruce and Alison does stem from this impossible conflict between them: Bruce believes that he is unable to express his femininity, and as such projects it onto Alison, while Alison wants everything but to be feminine. Both of them project their desired gender expression onto the other, and as a result are unsatisfied with each other as neither succeeds in being how they "should." Alison is not feminine, and Bruce is not masculine. Bruce could have what Alison wants (and vice versa), and as a result she's kind of disappointed when he doesn't achieve those expectations.
ReplyDeleteHi Lynn, I really like how you frame Alison and Bruce as “inverse mirrors,” especially in moments like the barrette scene where their conflict feels almost automatic and subconcious. Your point that this isn’t really about control but about Bruce enforcing norms he’s trapped by is especially strong, since it makes his actions feel more tragic and relatable, rather than authoritative. I also think your reading of the pearl necklace scene is insightful, because it shifts the focus from Alison’s refusal to Bruce’s own internalized fear and repression. Building on that, the idea that they’re both performing for each other reinforces why their relationship feels so ‘doomed’. Overall, you do a great job showing how their conflict comes from shared struggle rather than simple opposition. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHi Lynn! I think this is definitely one of the most tragic things in this novel: just as we seem to get a glimpse of Alison and Bruce confiding in each other, their possible connection is eventually cut off by Bruce's death. What's also interesting is that while Alison wasn't able to find in Bruce what she wished to express herself, she was eventually able to embrace her identity and proudly adopt a more tomboyish image. However, Bruce remained forever unable to truly express himself or embrace himself for who he was. This was, I think, an important example for Alison as to what not to do if she wanted to live true to herself. Great post!
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