Fun Home by Alison Bechdel - Blog 4 "Sexuality"

The theme of sexuality is portrayed many different ways through out the novel. Bechdel starts by speaking of her father's sexuality after his death. She describes the shock of finding out that he had affairs with other men after coming out to her mother. She does not know how to feel about this information and the encounters are what I seem to believe lead Bechdel to write this story. Sexuality seems to be topic that was never talked about in their home, the father always forcing Alison to be more "girly" or feminine, probably to account for the fact that he has had to hide his true being for his entire life. The idea that his daughter may be a lesbian may have crossed his mind long before she ever noticed it herself. For example, on vacation Alison really tries to convince her parents to be topless on the beach. "In Cannes, I argued compellingly for the right to exchange my tank suit for a pair of shorts." (Page 73) Although the image attached to this quote is humorous, it is also very important. There is an image of a topless woman (or maybe a man with an extremely low-hanging chest) walking behind her and her brother while they are playing on the beach. This gives a very innocent and almost questionable vibe to when Alison actually realized there was something different about her. The images of woman being topless around her, just like men, may have influenced her in a way that she began to believe that how she was feeling was normal, at least somewhere in the world. She was always trying to convince her father to allow her to wear what she wanted, even as a young woman, and he never failed to make her into who he wanted her to be, instead of who she is. When Alison begins talking about her more personal sexual experiences with woman, she explains how they were almost more experimental or based upon research than emotion. This may be because emotion was so frowned upon through out her childhood, but most of where she got her information on sexuality from was books and reports, not on real life. When she does start to delve into reality, she becomes wrapped up in the sexual aspects of being a lesbian, and around that time learns about her father. I think that this makes Alison feel more like she is doing something wrong than just being who she is and having sexual interactions with who she wishes.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel - Blog 3 "Faces"

The way that Bechdel portrays her family and herself through the facial expressions through out the novel really describes how she feels and how she sees her family. It is interesting to notice that when Bechdel is talking about her childhood and the things she was around to see, her father and mother almost always have the same exact facial expressions. They never change and they seem almost emotionless or blank. However, during flashbacks or descriptions of her parents' lives before she was born or before she can remember, their faces change. Her mother in particular is seen with multiple expressions, whether good or bad. I think this has a lot to do with Bechdel's image of her mother as an actress before she got married to her father and became emotionally blank. She even mentions this herself on page 72 when she writes, "In a passport photo taken eight years later, my mother's luminous face has gone dull." This shows how Bechdel sees her mother as an expressive human being up until being married with children for a few years. Her relationship with her husband had grown cold and passionless, while the children only picked at the scabs that were already there. In the images that display stories of the past, where Alison was either not around or not born yet, her mother is pictured with her hair down and wider, bright eyes. Although the images are in black and white you can clearly see the difference. Her father, although a less severe example, only shows emotion on his face when he is speaking to young men or also in memories or stories of the past. Bechdel never depicts him smiling in any other circumstance and his face stays pretty much static through out the rest of the novel. I think that this shows how Bechdel has viewed her parents through out her entire life. They are tired, bored with their relationship, and just going through the motions of the day. She rarely accounts for good moments between the two of them, and very few personal connections other than arguments were shown in the novel. Her father always seems unhappy, probably because he has been required to hide his true emotions his whole life.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel - Blog 2 "The House"

"But over the next eighteen years, my father would restore the house to its original condition, and then some. He would perform, as Daedalus did, dazzling display of artfulness. He would cultivate the barren yard into a lush, flowering landscape. He would manipulate flagstones that weighed half a ton and the thinnest, quivering layers of a gold leaf. It could have been a romantic story like in "It's A Wonderful Life", when Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed fix up that big old house and raise their family there. But in the movie when Jimmy Stewart comes home one night and starts yelling at everyone it's out of the ordinary. Daedalus, too, was indifferent to the human cost of his projects."

The family house not only provides the title of the memoir but it is the center of the family. Alison's father is obsessed with fixing up an old home for them to live in, and he makes the journey of rebuilding and redecorating this home more important than anything else in his life. The home is supposed to be a place of comfort, of rest, and of family, but through her father's struggles to finish the home and make it better than it ever was actually results in a family that does not want to be around him. There was always work to be done in the home and he made sure that his children were there to help him. Wether they were told to clean, fix, assist, or put away his children despised the home for it's great deal of effort necessary to make it what it was. But Alison's father made sure to create something beautiful from something ugly and his pure passion for it's completion seemed to have struck Alison. As the quote above explains, her father paid no mind to the pain and turmoil his remodeling caused his family. He would be aggressive and angry when things no longer went his way, making the home a place of discomfort and terror instead of love and security.

"And of course, my brothers and I were free labor. Dad considered us extensions of his own body, like precision robot arms."

This act left his children to despise the house they grew up in. It made them not want to come home and inevitably drove them out. Because their father's passion was not shared by all, the family was distraught and no longer connected.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel

I have never read a graphic memoir before and upon starting "Fun Home" by Alison Bechdel I was a bit intimidated. I was not sure if the way the novel was presented would encourage me to continue reading or distract me from the actual story line. After the first chapter I was definitely enthralled with how the story was written. The images not only added meaning to what was being described but they give away hints of what the story is based on. The expressions on the characters' faces adds another dimension to classic novel reading that I have never before experienced. Also, the way the characters are depicted gives clues as to what will come next in the story such as not only Alison's sexuality but also her father's. For example, although it may sound stereotypical, the way Alison and her father were depicted through out the books: what they were wearing, doing...etc., lead me to believe they had a different sexuality, which is then proven in chapter three.

The images that accompany the writing add a bit more to the story line that could not be told in description. Instead of leaving the imaging up to the reader, Bechdel displays the situations for us with just enough detail to make the story remain relatable. The images are in black and white, which allows the reader to fill in the blanks, or create more to the story instead of reading it flatly and passively. Although I have not yet finished reading the memoir I have found myself captured within the quirky remarks and sarcastic facial expressions depicted on the pages.

All in all I think without the images the story would just be another novel to sit on a shelf. As the story unfolds so do the characters' personalities and we do not only get to imagine the progression of life for these people but we get see it in front of us.

The Purpose of Writing Stories like "In The Time of The Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez

In The Time of The Butterflies was a piece of writing created to retell the historical stories of the Mirabal sisters. Stories such as these are important to read and keep around in order to inform others who may not have been aware of the common issues of other cultures and lifestyles of their way of life as well as the dangers of certain political systems. Within the United States we are very lucky to have a democracy with laws that protect our people. By reading "In The Time of The Butterflies" it is easy to see that not all people are fortunate enough to have that safety and security within their lives and countries. The story recounts the way of life of each of the sisters, and describes what events occurred within their lives that led to the death of Maria Teresa, Minerva, and Patricia. Through this recollection we learn how Dede has dealt with the loss of her family, and how she has kept the story of oppression and rebellion alive in order to honor her sisters.

Books such as these are an important part of history. Although the entire story may not be fact, or historical truth, they do bring on common themes of struggle, oppression, rebellion, and the strive for equality and the fall of a dictatorship which brought harm to so many innocent and loving people. The rebellion movement was only meant to raise awareness as to what is wrong with the way the country was being run and to make enough people join in order to do something about it.

In The Time of The Butterflies - Julia Alvarez: Mate's Timeline

Maria Teresa's Timeline of Important Events

• Minerva gives Mate her first diary for her First Communion
• Receives her first pair of high heels (makes her feel grown)
• Mate is influenced by Minerva  (who she looks up to the most) and lies to the principal of her school
• Mate finds out about Minerva's anti-governmental attitude
• Her opinions of Trujillo flip flopped as she started to see both sides of the issue
• Hilda gets caught by police and Mate needs to bury the diary.
• 1953 - December - Mate's father dies.
• December 15, 1953 - Mate learns about her father's affair and other children
• Receives her new diary from Minerva
• January 1, 1954 - Mate has her first kiss with Berto
• July 3, 1954 - Mate graduates
• Refuses to marry
• Mate goes to school with Minerva
• Minerva marries Manolo and becomes pregnant
• Changes her major to philosophy
• Moves in with Minerva
• Mate is informed of Manolo's affair
• Mate takes care of their baby in order to fix their marriage
• Meets Palomino and learns of the revolution and the weapons
• Mate moves out of Minerva's house and into her own apartment in a "humble part of town"
• Realizes her love for Palomino
• Joins the revolution
• Mate and Palomino get married
• They have a child together
• Mate becomes arrested for being involved with the revolution with Palomino
• Eventually gets put on house arrest and goes to visit her husband in prison.
• On her way home Mate, Minerva, and Patria are murdered for being revolutionaries. 

In The Time of The Butterflies - Julia Alvarez

The writing style of this novel is definitely not something I am used to. Not only was it difficult to train my eye to pay attention to who was talking but also what dates they were talking about. The fact that the entire novel was a back-and-forth not only in voices but in time created a really difficult flow. Out of all of the books we have read thus far this semester, this is my least favorite. Although the story is a great accomplishment when it comes to telling a story that many people can relate to, of struggle, loss, suffering, and personal growth, the way it was written really threw me off. The novel starts off with the voice of Dede, starting in 1994. The first chapter of the book was not that hard to get through, she talked about herself in a way I am comfortable reading. When she begins talking about the past it was easy to see where the change happened. There is a break in the text and it begins with the words "she remembers". If the entire book had these fantastic clues it would have been a lot easier to get through. The easiest pieces for me to read were in Maria Teresa's voice. Her journal-entry style was clear and her voice was younger which made it feel more direct and personal. I felt like I could connect to her voice much easier than the other three voices through out the story. The way that Alvarez writes these four voices is a unique technique to get her readers to see a difference between the girls. I feel like with all the differences in the way the women speak and write shows a clear difference in personality and experience.