Literacy, Vocabulary and Sexuality in Fun Home

Alison Bechdel's autobiographical graphic novel Fun Home is one of the more unusual ones I've had the pleasure of reading (right up there with the similarly scholarly Asterios Polyp by David Mazuchelli and the utterly bonkers Grant Morrison funnybook The Filth), owing in no small part to her detached narration and an erudite vocabulary the likes of which I'd wager few non-English major types would find appealing instead of irritating. The upper-level syntax Bechdel employs is not just there to make her prose seem pretentious, however; it serves a rhetorical purpose as well. By linking the discovery of her non-heteronormative sexuality with the development of her literacy and vocabulary, Bechdel comments upon the challenges and joys she experiences through both processes and suggests that, in the mind of a highly literate person, personal growth and the development of literacy are intimately linked.

Part of what sets Fun Home apart from many graphic novels is in its visual elements. While the pictures are never dominated by the type on the page, Bechdel de-emphasizes the art in individual panels by (for the most part) sticking to a 3-panel widescreen design that causes the reader to focus on the words that surround them and the speech bubbles within. This emphasis on the textual elements of the novel's design work to reinforce the themes of the power of literacy on an almost subconscious level- the reader places higher value on the text of this *graphic* novel even before the theme is introduced through the plot.

Bechdel explores her connection between words and sex primarily in Chapter 5 of Fun Home. It begins with the adult Alison looking up the word "queer" in the dictionary and remarking about how her father's death fit with all of the word's many diverse definitions, then describes her parents' marriage using different literary allusions, including The Taming of the Shrew and the works of Proust. Bechdel's use of literature and vocabulary in these parts of the chapter illustrate how a highly literate person grows to view their own life in a way that one could consider an example of intertextuality- relating various works not just to each other but to personal experiences as well.

Later on in the chapter Bechdel recounts how she discovered her sexual identity at nineteen, revealing that books were almost solely responsible for her revelation, which she refers to as "not of the flesh, but of the mind." The author describes not being surprised by the idea that it was reading and not something more sensual that sparked her realization, but rather her "bookish upbringing." By juxtaposing this sequence with earlier ones regarding her parents' relationship and a later one about the ways her father "cultivated" younger men for his own desires, Bechdel illustrates the importance of literacy not just to her own life, but to her parents' as well.

Stereotypes and Persecution in MAUS

I was first introduced to "radical existential humanist" philosopher and writer Frantz Fanon through required reading for my 'Hip-Hop Philosophy' class this semester, around the same time we began reading Art Spiegelman's MAUS for this class. Fanon explores a wide range of concepts relating to racism and decolonization in books like "Black Skin White Mask" and "The Wretched of the Earth," but I found his writings concerning the psychological effects of racial subjugation on its victims to have a special significance to Spiegelman's characterization of his father Vladek.

Fanon's background as a psychiatrist led him to look past the socio-economic effects of colonialism and racism on persecuted ethnic groups and into the ways in which their oppression affected the way they perceived themselves. As part of a far more complex set of theories that I have not the room nor the adequate understanding to elaborate upon, Fanon divided the subjects of his writings into two groups. The "colonists", written here in air quotes because a group designated as such need not literally occupying a foreign country, exploit and oppress another group on a broad, systemic level, and the "colonized" are the victims of said exploitation and oppression. As a result of the colonists' systemic abuse, Fanon argued, colonized people will adopt the mentality of their colonizers, thus subconsciously buying into their stereotypes and hate speech and in some ways becoming the exact thing a racist mind perceives them to be. Regarding the atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany, the Nazis would be considered colonizers and Europe's Jews the colonized.

Towards the end of Part One of Spiegelman's graphic novel (pg. 131-2 of the uncollected edition), the author explains the way he characterized his father.

"I mean, I'm just trying to portray my father Accurately!" says Art on the following page.

Even if his wife doesn't buy into the idea, the dialogue in this scene suggests that the reason for Vladek's irrational compulsion to save money is a result of the suffering he endures under the Nazi occupation of Poland, which is in no small way a reflection of Fanon's theories on the psychological effects of racially-based oppression.

This scene, and the association of Vladek's characterization as a man twisted into a stereotype by years of racism-induced self-hatred, is significant to work's overarching theme of the complexities of racism and prejudice, as well as Spiegelman's argument that the impact of the Holocaust is not limited to its immediate victims, but something that resonates through the ages due to the profound effect it had on survivors, the families they would go on to have and the people they would later interact with. The older version of Vladek becomes a reminder that the damage done by the Holocaust was not only unfathomable loss of life, but irreparable psychological harm done to the survivors and the effects of it on loved ones decades later.