In Fun Home,
Bechdel’s father is described as an artificer, an inventor of faux reality: “He
used his skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things appear what
they are not” (16). Thus the father and daughter are cast outside the heteronormative
family structure; however, the appearance of a typical procreative family is maintained.
But everything about this dysfunctional family’s interaction is atypical of a nuclear
family. There is something absurd about them and their awkward, often cold,
social interactions.
Similarly, there is little about Bechdel’s graphic autobiographical
novel that is typical. The story does not follow the typical structure of
linear narrative. The reader moves between retrospective perspective and the
present and attempts to grasp strands of narrative and reassemble them in a way
that makes seems of the absurd.
The father reads Camus, an existentialist philosopher, and
demonstrates a morbid fascination with his death in an auto accident. Camus’
philosophy was concerned with the absurd, particularly the absurdity of death: “The
subject of this essay is precisely this relationship between the absurd and
suicide, the exact degree to which suicide is a solution to the absurd” (47).
What could be more absurd than Mr. Bechdel’s life? When he is killed by a bread
truck, the question arises, was it suicide or an accident?
The question of Mr. Bechdel's death is really interesting. I'm not sure if Alison Bechdel ever comes to a conclusion, but I think she finds rather compelling evidence of a suicide.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, the question clearly vexes her. I wonder if the question will be resolved by the end of the book.
ReplyDeleteI think that "absurd" in the philosophical sense the perfect descriptor for _Fun Home_ and Alison's family life, particularly with this definition:
ReplyDelete"The Absurd is the conflict between (1) the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and (2) the human inability to find any" (Wikipedia). If Bruce explores for us this conflict of finding or making life's purpose, then he answers (and negates) Camus's essay about the absurd and suicide. By the end of "The Myth of Sisyphus," Camus finds suicide an illogical solution, as the act would only make the idea of existence more absurd. If Bruce really did commit suicide, he also committed his existence to the absurdist school of thought.