Author: jacobsm

Fun Home and the Real World

Only four months earlier, I had made an announcement to my parents. I am a lesbian….Then a phone call in which dealt a staggering blow. Your father has had affairs with other men. I’d been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents tragedy. (58). “

This statement comes from the main character in Fun Home, the daughter, who is trying to find herself and accept who she is. This sentiment is important in life, because we are able to see in the text, and in our own lives, these efforts being made to reveal ourselves to others, and having a challenging time doing so.  Everyone experiences this moment at some point, regardless of your age, gender, identity etc. The graphic novel portrays this character as struggling, and then liberated in discovering her sexual identity and herself.

In life, we all have moments where it comes time to reveal something personal and private, or to make a significant decision, but then some moment blocks you from doing so. This moment is when you discover that you are stronger than you think, and can handle staying quiet for the time being, or being louder than anyone in the room, depending on what you are sharing entails. This isn’t a tangible concept that we face, but it is a mentality that we go through, to become who we  are.

The reason I thought this would make a good comparison to something that each one of faces in our daily lives is because it was a secret yet to be revealed. In our lives we all have secrets that no one, or a small few know about. These type of secrets tend to change some part of who you are, for better or for worse. I was reminded about our journal entry we had to write for the previous class, and how some of us were talking about significant moments we didn’t realize were significant until we reflected on them. However, for characters like the daughter in Fun Home, her secret does change her, but in the change, she seems to be happier to announce to the world that she is a lesbian, that she has finally figured herself out for her own sake. This is why I think her self discovery relates to our every day lives, regardless of your sexual orientation, age, gender, or whatever category  in which you place yourself.

 

Internal Debates or Inner Madness?

“ I wonder at how many of us, feeling unsafe and unprotected, either end up running away from everything we know and love, or staying and simply and going mad. I have decided today that neither option is more or less noble than the other. They are merely different ways of coping, and we each must cope as best we can” (90).

In class we discussed the use of the ten on one method. To me, this quotation encompassed a few of the ideas we came up with when we read our quotations out loud. I think this statement embodies the ideas of truth, desire, and social constructs. The truth is evident because the way this statement is said in the novel, the reader can see inside the speaker’s mind, that there is some inner debate about whether to stay or go. We discussed in class how Tyler has not come out and said that he is gay, but is it implied, as he has stated he is girlish, along with other things which would imply his sexual orientation. Perhaps his truth is his inner debate about whether to come out to everyone or not. This feeling goes hand in hand with social constructs, which dictates a person’s actions based on societal norms. Tyler may worry that he wont be fully accepted for who he is, and how he identifies. Desire can be seen in this passage through the speakers inner debate because it seems like he wants to stay, to be helpful to those who need him, but also it seems Tyler desires coming out to the world. Perhaps his way of coping is to remain quiet and just not say anything, that way nothing changes, but he does not rejected by those around him whom he loves.

When doing the method on this statement, the commas become important because it separates what should be done, and what the speaker wants to happen. For example, “feeling unsafe and unprotected, or staying and going mad” provides this internal conflict, and which is better? The narrator is saying that neither is better or worse, but rather they are different ways of simply trying to exist. I think many of us have seen this decision in our own lives, not only the lives of Mala, Tyler, and the other characters in the novel.  At times, we all struggle with whatever decision we need to make, and whether or not to change whatever the change is, can lead to this same type of internal debate.

Changes in Lust or Love

“You don’t lose your lust at the rate you lose your looks. Its a cruel fact of nature. you go on fancying it just the same. And thats hard” (149)

At the time that this quotation is said by Gail to the narrator caught my attention because currently there is something happening between the speaker and Gail. There seems to be a different type of relationship forming between the two. Gail is seemingly nursing the narrator back to health mentally. She is making statements generally saying get over Louise. This quotation is interesting because with all the help the narrator has received, Louise is still the main issue in zes mind. The statement itself that “you don’t lose your lust at the rate you lose your looks” is the exact feeling the narrator is going through. Although Louise is many miles away in Switzerland after receiving treatment for cancer, there is still an obsession being clung to. When told that Louise has beat the cancer and is in remission, the reader can feel the sense of relief felt by the narrator. This reiterates the fact that although the narrator claims to not want to see Louise, ze is still in fact in love with her, and it is very hard to go through. “Fancying” her from this great distance is all that the speaker has left to hold onto as of now. The readers are told early on in the back that Louise does not have the same feelings that the speaker does. It is a form of unrequited love. Gail’s words above hit that idea on the head, stressing that holding these strong feelings for a person when they do not return them in the same capacity is very difficult to live through, especially as your lust for that person are growing consistently.

The narrator and author spend multiple pages discussing how love for Louise encompasses the speakers whole being, that the love the speaker has for Louise is literally described on all parts of her body, from her skin to her bones, to her ears etc. The article written by Halberstam states that “different histories touch or bush up against each other, ceasing temporal havoc in the key of desire” (3). This relates directly because through the speakers love and lust for Louise it is causing the body true havoc because of this intense sensation of want and need.

The Essence of Louise

 “Oh Louise, I’m not telling the truth. You aren’t threatening me, I’m threatening myself. My careful well-earned life means nothing. The clock was ticking. I thought, How long before the shouting starts? How long before the tears and accusations and the pain? That specific stone in the stomach pain when you lose something you haven’t got round to valuing? Why is the measure of love loss?” (39)

This quotation comes from the narrator of the book, in reference to the love the speaker holds for Louise, despite the fact that she is married to Jacqueline. In the page before this quotation, the speaker is describing eating lunch with Louise and he is aroused by everything she does, from chewing on a carrot, to chopping up a pear. I thought this was interesting because another one of my classes is discussing food and how it can be related to sexuality.

By using the method, the list of questions and question marks make this set of statements stand out in the book. It is clear that the narrator is in his/her own mind, questioning every thought which entered the mind. The narrator is trying to figure out why these feelings are arising and what to do with them now. The reader can tell that the speaker is feeling significant anxiety about how quickly feelings of love and happiness can turn to pain. Perhaps the speaker had significant pain in the last relationship, or perhaps this relationship is so different, because Louise is unavailable to the speaker, that being around her is torturous. Asking the questions listed in the passage about show the reader that there is an anticipation for an uneasy ending, yet the speaker doesn’t ask these questions aloud, rather they are the inner thought of the mind.

After the passage ends, the speaker continues to discuss the idea of jumping out of a plane without a parachute, a metaphor for possibly telling Louise of the desire for her, and possibly the question of will she leave Jacqueline. This makes it very clear to the reader that the narrator has become love sick over Louise and may possibly confront her and declare the love held for her. The questions asked are significant because they allow the reader access to the mind of the narrator and the struggles the narrator faces about having these feelings.

The Last Night

Passage 2: “Then you must know, as well as the rest of us, that there was something queer about that gentleman and something that gave a man a turn—I don’t know rightly how to say it beyond this: that you felt in your marrow—kind of cold and thin.” (pg. 31)

When this passage is presented in the story, the characters Poole (Jekyll’s butler) and Mr. Utterson are meeting. Poole believes there may have been foul play in regards to Mr. Jekyll, potentially a poisoning by drugs. The two men enter a laboratory and see and hear someone else inside. The mystery character is masked, as to not reveal his identity. Because of this uncertainty, they wonder if the masked person is Mr. Hyde. After the quotation, on the top of the next page, Poole tells Mr. Utterson, he is almost sure that the masked figure was Hyde. They wonder if Hyde murdered Mr. Jekyll, and if so, why is he staying near his victim verses fleeing?  The two long hyphens are significant because they allow for a break in the remarks, where the author has allowed the characters to interject thoughts of their own. This shows the hesitancy they have. The use of the correlation between marrow feeling cold and thin is very interesting because one does not feel the marrow in their bones, but it gives the reader a dark, mysterious feeling about the character being described, Mr. Hyde. This quotation to the story is important because although it is describing only one small portion of a character, it gives the reader a feeling that something dramatic and dark is about to happen. The words “something queer about that gentleman and something that gave a man a turn” put the reader on edge slightly. The author is making the point that there is something not quite right with the character that makes you question what has he done, or what is he about to do??