Divergence of Bruce and Alison's Aesthetics

 Throughout the novel Fun Home, Alison Bechdel reconstructs the story of her childhood and coming of age alongside the story of her relationship with her father, Bruce, and his death. Central to the parallel stories is Alison’s description of the clear divergence of her aesthetic and its opposition to Bruce’s aesthetic. 

Alison and Bruce are both artists. Bruce has an artistic talent and passion for the restoration of their mansion, that Alison clearly admires to an extent — she even calls him the “Daedalus of decor” (pg. 6). Yet early on in the novel, she describes how she grew resentful of how passion for the restoration of the house manifested in the way he acted towards their family. Bruce was tyrannical around art, commanding his children to help him with restoration and disregarding their comments towards the lack of functionality. He obsessed over the illusion of a perfect family as almost ornament to the home’s aesthetic, creating “a sort of still life with children,” rather than being an authentic family and being emotionally present (pg. 13). Alison says “I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture” (pg. 14). 

Later in the novel, it becomes more prevalent that his surface level passion for production of the house was almost an artistic outlet for his closeted sexuality. The mansion is heavily embellished, with elaborate antique centerpieces and a Victorian quality. His artistry seems to compensate for his lack of ability to express his femininity due to his social context, which the reader sees is a big part of his identity through the photograph of him when he was Alison’s age dressed in a woman’s bathing suit. 

Similar to her father’s restoration of the house, Alison is also restoring the home through her art, in the form of this novel and its illustrations. She is reconstructing the story of Bruce from her childhood memories with her retrospect as an adult, explicitly illustrating real photographs and diary entries to piece together the story. I believe part of this process was her form of reconciling her father’s death, his complicated morality and sexuality, and their multi-sided relationship. It is very hard to characterize their relationship; on one hand, he was detached in her childhood, yet Alison also gives glimpses later on of him playing an important role in her life when she was old enough to discuss his favorite novels and their frequent phone calls during her time in college. He is the one to recommend to her the novel that guides her in her sexual awakening, so there is evidence he becomes much more accepting of her identity later on in her life as opposed to imposing his aesthetic onto her. The question of whether Alison goes too easy on Bruce is complex, but in the end drawing the line between Alison's interpretation and the truth may not matter.

Alison is keen to compare the similarity of their stories yet the contrast of their aesthetics. Early on, she describes herself as the “Spartan to my father’s Athenian. Modern to his Victorian. Butch to his Nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete” (pg. 15). Evident from her narrative voice, art aesthetic, and way she realized her sexuality, what she claims about her lack of embellishment compared to Bruce’s is very true. The novel’s brutal honesty and explicitly autobiographical nature is unique in how bluntly she discusses taboo topics regarding her own family and life. Her artwork reflects this aesthetic as well; she sometimes clearly recreating real photographs, and all her illustrations are washed over in this grayish wash rather than overly colorful. Her coming out story is almost matter of fact and honest, rather than Bruce’s elaborate facade to continuously maintain a sense of normalcy. 

While Alison looks to find a divergence in their aesthetics, she almost can’t help but notice the similarities in their characters. Similarly, as a reader, I can’t help but notice the semblances of Bruce in her artistry and aesthetic. Her writing has this almost dark bluntness to it, yet it is embellished with elaborate analogies to other texts and complex interpretations of events. Even her reconstruction of Bruce’s story could arguably be embellished; Bruce’s death being ruled as suicide is ambiguous and it is difficult to distinguish clear lines between truth and Alison’s need to categorize the event of her father’s death into part of their antagonistic aesthetics. Perhaps she can’t help but also follow in his footsteps a bit.