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jaranda's picture

Details and OCD

I thought the detailing in Fun Home, which you noticed on page 60, was an interesting point throughout the book.  I brought up Bechdel's OCD in class, which she talks about around the middle of the book.  She considered her left shoe her father and her right shoe her mother, and she would spend many minutes trying to line them up so as not to show one preference over the other.  Comparing her OCD to her relationship with her parents is interesting.  Clearly she had different relationships with each of them, but it seems like she tried to make them equal, as is reflected in the frame on page 137.

 

Was Bechdel just trying to be accurate in the portrayal of her life or was this just a new outlet for her OCD? Details, like the house's wallpaper and the recurring Sunbeam Bread are both good examples of her precise nature. The details could also be a way for Bechdel to foreshadow future events. The class talked about how the book Anna Karenina was shown on the first page of Fun Home to make a connection to the opening line, which talks about happy families being alike in their own unhappy ways, but I think it might also relate to Bechdel’s opinion of her father’s later death. Anna Karenina threw herself in front of a train, which I think could be similar to the way she thinks her father might have jumped in front of the bread truck. Reading this graphic narrative was an interesting experience because of the details she included. Obviously the subtle clues at what was going to happen later in the book would have to have been interpreted differently if Bechdel had just written a typical memoir.   

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