Bechdel’s extensive and intentional use of intertextual references in her graphic novel ‘Fun Home gives readers a nuanced and deep insight into her life, family and experiences. Firstly, Bechdel uses specific intertextual references in the novel to reveal the nature of relationships and roles within her family. For example, Bechdel uses the references to ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ by Shakespeare to illustrate the unhappy marriage her family was built upon by comparing her mother to the determined Katherine who’s spirits get worn down into submission by the domineering Pertuchio, or Bruce in this case. This reference to their sham marriage helps readers compare, visualise and understand the relationship roles within the family, which sways their sympathies as it has been contextualised for them. Additionally, we see the inescapable relationship Bechdel has with her father when she drops English as a class because she finds her father’s enthusiasm for it ‘suffocating’, however, she quickly ends up taking a class reading ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce, her father’s favourite book. This small and subtle addition into the plot interestingly reveals that Bechdel and her father are always connected, even if she tries to deny it. 

Alternatively, through the use of ‘Ulysses’ readers can infer that literature is the glue that holds the family together, connecting them even during hardships, and this could be another reason why Bechdel enlists intertextual references on such a broad scale. Bechdel mentions that her use of intertextual references helps make her parents ‘more real’ to her ‘in fictional terms’, which implies that Bechdel needed to use fiction to represent how she believed that her life and family was ‘fake’ or did not have real substance. Interestingly, Bechdel’s self recognition of her use of referential writing shows readers how she uses literature to piece together, understand and consolidate her quite confusing and mixed feelings towards her father and her youth. (Through Bechdel’s self-conscious tone, readers can also understand why, where and how she uses her references which makes the descriptions of her family life more valid as readers are given insight into her authorial intent.)

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New Ideas from LitCharts:

“But Alison, Bruce, and Helen each engage with fiction in different ways. “

” Alison used fiction as an evasion, as a way to hide or deny truth or reality. “

“Helen seems to use fiction to escape it – through theater and the chance to inhabit someone else, Helen can ignore and therefore live with the reality that her husband is cheating on her with underage men, rather than do something in reality to try to change it or address it. And, further still, the book suggests that Helen is playing even her own life as a kind of role, acting the part of the happy wife to a good family man as if it were true.”

“Bruce comes to represent the fine line between fiction and lies, which, in Alis

on’s view, is all about presentation—Bruce puts himself forward as something he is not, and thus he steps over the line so that his Good Husband And Father mask becomes a suffocating, shame-shielding lie that invades every part of his life, including the design of his house.”

I had thought about how Alison uses fiction, but I did not really think about the ways in which fiction is used through different characters. In these quotes, we can see how fiction has been used in a variety of ways by Bechdel’s family as a way of coping with turmoil in the lives of each character. I believe the representation of how each character uses fiction could speak broadly about how  people in society tend to deny or evade the realities of their circumstances.

 

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Interesting quotes from my classmates:

Dhrithika Jayanth: ‘ It is also true that the truth about her father is so vague and mysterious that she needs to use some kind of reference to express his father’s actions and thoughts.” – This is another important element of why she uses literature so heavily.

Anda Gu: “She is being frank that what appears in the memoir may not be true in every aspect as the dramatic flares provided by the textual references may not apply to her situation as closely as audiences would expect. She is being honest with herself in this recap of her life, and sticking true to the genre of memoir.” – Another explanation as to why her self-consciousness helps her give a valid/candid view of her life