I think it is
interesting that Bechdel uses literary allusions and myths to describe her
parents, particularly her father. She states that she does this “because my
parents are most real to me in fictional terms” (67). She compares her parents
to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald’s tumultuous relationship. She also talks
about her father’s suicide in relation to what he had been reading in the weeks
leading up to his death: A Happy Death
by Albert Camus. She says that he had been leaving the book around the house in
a “deliberate manner” (27). She highlights a piece of text from the book in one
of the panels to provide commentary on her father and her parents’ marriage: “He
discovered the cruel paradox by which we always deceive ourselves twice about
the people we love – first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage”
(28). This deception ultimately led to his suicide.
Keegan, I completely agree, like Monica said in the previous class Bechdel has placed every image with a purpose. Whether the death was accidental or suicidal she does not say, but leaves a lot of evidence to believe he did in fact commit suicide. Especially, all of the sunbeam imagery placed throughout the first section we read, as well as all of the books Bruce reads in the panels.
ReplyDelete