Alison's Mother and Identity Performance
Bruce Bechdel and his relationship with his daughter, Alison Bechdel– is the main focal point of Fun Home– written by Alison. While Bruce’s life story and Alison’s, as well as the similarities and differences between them, are the most prevalent thread in the novel, the other members of Alison’s family (her mother and brothers) fall to the wayside. However, I think the limited information we learn about Alison’s mother actually represents one of the biggest themes in the book.
The mother is an actor, and was highly invested in it during college (in fact, she met Bruce during a college production of Taming of the Shrew). During the summer of Nixon’s resignation, the novel follows the mother learning her role for an Oscar Wilde play. She dedicates her entire being to inhabiting the part, described by Alison as becoming an “empty shell” in the process. Because her life is consumed by the play and she loses herself in it, she does incredibly well in the performances. That motif of performance is huge in Fun Home, as Bruce has to put on a show of heterosexuality and masculinity throughout his life, and in the process, leaves his true identity unfulfilled and becomes something of an empty shell himself. Alison has to search for pieces of his true inner mind and personality after his death, where she finds examples of Bruce’s performativity, like his love letters to her mother closely resembling Fitzgerald’s writing.
Alison is no stranger to performing her identity as well. In her childhood, femininity feels more foreign to her, and every time her father forces her to wear a dress or any “girlish” accessory, it feels unnatural to her. However, unlike Bruce, she comes out of the closet in college and gets to live her life authentically as a lesbian. Her performance of her identity turns into a true expression of it.
Performance is one of the strongest themes in Fun Home, which comes across differently through Alison’s mother, father, and herself. Though the mother’s ‘performance’ isn’t necessarily related to her sexuality, her relationship with acting gives the reader a frame of reference for the experience of Bruce and Alison in their efforts towards heteronormativity. Alison’s mother’s part in this book may be smaller, but her contribution is still incredibly significant.
Great post! I like how you draw parallels between Alison's mother performing to Alison 'performing' traditional femininity. It's interesting to note that although Fun House focuses more on Bruce and Alison's relationship, she had an equally complicated one with her mother (she doesn't really know what her mother's true feelings were either, even when she reveals things like Bruce's affairs to Alison).
ReplyDeleteI think its interesting to think about how Helena was putting on a front even to Alison. Before Alison found out about Bruce's "affairs," Helena seems to have hid this complication from the rest of the family. I'm pretty sure Alison also wrote a book about her relationship with her mother which would be interesting to read after Fun Home.
ReplyDeleteNice Post! I like that you talked about her mother. While in actual life a lot of us focus more on our mothers Alison almost always talked about her Dad. Even though she didn't really talk about her mother their relationship seemed almost more complicated than with her Dad. Her mother played an important role in her life, but Alison focused mostly on how her Dad influenced her.
ReplyDeleteYou make a great point performing being a key aspect of life in Alison's family. Everyone in the family is acting in their own way, concealing or pretending something to appear normal from the outside. They all want to appear as a normal standard family, but there is always something that is missing or inauthentic about it.
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