“Sexual Shame is in Itself a Kind of Death”: The tragic Mirroring of Alison and her Father in Fun Home

Fun Home creates an immediate and obvious dissonance between the narrator, Alison, and her father. Alison is consumed with creating a masculine image for herself, both in appearance and activities. Her father, on the other hand, spent his days consumed with culturally deemed feminine tasks, such as interior design and fashion (even going so far as to attempt to dress his daughter in more feminine clothing that he appreciated.) Their relationship was doomed to fail from the beginning; both were closeted homosexuals just trying to fit into the family dynamic they found themselves in, but both identifying in very different ways. The similarities in circumstance were glaring, but their dissonance thrived on their lack of communication and openness.

By the end of the book, their similarities reveal themselves. We learn of their similar transgender childhood experiences, as well as their attempts to both continue on with and hide their homosexual experiences from their family. While different in personality, their experiences were nearly parallel. The sudden realization for Alison, however, is that the main difference in their experiences was in acceptance amongst peers. At her school, she had the opportunity to join with a group of peers who shared her experiences and identified openly in similar ways. Her father, on the other hand, had no shared experiences and had to hide and suppress his alternative sexuality. By the time it surfaced, it was no longer a point of pride in the same way that Alison had found it to be, but of shame.

In a way, as implied by Bechdel, Alison’s father was dead long before his (possible) suicide. “Sexual shame is in itself a kind of death” (Bechdel 228), and her father met an untimely death both socially and personally as a result of it. While their experiences were undoubtedly similar, if not nearly identical, the difference in interpersonal experience was the difference between life and death, success and tragedy.

4 thoughts on ““Sexual Shame is in Itself a Kind of Death”: The tragic Mirroring of Alison and her Father in Fun Home”

  1. I also felt that the quote, “sexual shame is in itself a kind of death” is extremely powerful. I agree with you that Allison was given the opportunity to escape from the small minded town that seemed to constrict her father, and leave him with nothing but the opportunity for aesthetic expression. This constriction can be demonstrated by Allison’s confession, “I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture”. Allison was able to find her true identity in a social context where her father had to hide it behind a veil of materialism.

  2. You did a great job of drawing out the similarities between Bruce’s and Alison’s experiences– I agree with your point that their experiences of having non-normative sexual identities were parallel but diverged in key ways. I also agree that Alison’s and Bruce’s differing interpersonal experiences were crucial in determining the quality of their lives. I’m wondering how you think their respective positions in time determined their experiences– do you think that Bruce would have been able to feel less shame had he grown up at a different point in time, or is sexual shame something that’s inherently internal?

  3. I really enjoyed reading your post. I think your analyzing of the quote “sexual shaming is a kind of death” was very good. I also found this really interesting because I was able to relate it to one of other courses I am taking which is spiritual healing. One the most popular forms of complimentary medicine is group therapy because the patient feels like they are not alone in going through a their medical issue or experience. This exact same feeling is the one you described that Alison had with her group at college, which allowed her not to keep who she really was inside like Bruce had.

  4. I really enjoyed reading your post. I think your analyzing of the quote “sexual shaming is a kind of death” was very good. I also found this really interesting because I was able to relate it to one of other courses I am taking which is spiritual healing. One the most popular forms of complimentary medicine is group therapy because the patient feels like they are not alone in going through a their medical issue or experience. This exact same feeling is the one described that Alison had with her group at college, which allowed her not to keep who she really was inside like Bruce had.

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