Writing about Fun Home

Fun Home is a autobiographical graphic novel, and it is also a coming-of-age story. Accordingly, there are a lot of themes in this work that echo other books we have read this semester: themes of self-expression, developing an identity, personal beliefs vs. societal expectations, sexual exploration, desire, guilt, control, and insecurity. You can write about Bechdel's talk on any of these themes and what she adds to the conversation.

One of the things that makes this work very different is the pictures. Bechdel is an artist, and she is doing a lot of interesting things with the images she presents, in writing as well as pictures. Notice some of her fine details, how she plays with light and shadow, what is in focus and what is sidelined in various pages, what is repeated, changed, etc.

Like many other writers, Bechdel seems to suggest that writing is an outlet for survival as well as expression. Like Ensler, she also uses a dark humor as a coping mechanism. Explore this in her tone and in her contradictions.

Like Nye, Bechdel looks to her father in order to understand herself. Throughout Fun Home, she reads her father's sexual identity as a mirror of her own (lots of images of mirrors throughout) just as Nye read her father's cultural identity as a mirror of her own. What might this suggest about the way that children use family as a springboard for their own self-expression and identity? How do these authors both embrace and reject their families? How so they learn from their experiences? Specifically, how does Bechdel write a different ending for herself than her father's and why is that so important?

Reading Buterflies

photo © 2009 Hafiz Issadeen | more info (via: Wylio)



Remember to keep your character charts/event timelines.

Here are some reading and writing questions that you can blog about: (warning: #7 contains a spolier)


1) Why does Alvarez feel compelled to tell this story, to bring this story to American
readers? What does she want us to gain from knowing this history, from knowing
these women? Is this an American story? How is this also Alvarez’s story? Where
is her voice here?

2) By the end of the novel, how have the characters of Minerva, Mate, and Patria
changed? Have they changed the revolution or has the revolution changed them?
Is there a happy ending to this story at all?

3) In the epilogue, Dede’s perspective is presented from a first person point of view,
unlike her previous chapters which were in third person. Why? Has she finally
found her “I”? What has she learned about herself by this time? Who is she and
how has her view of herself changed? Why does Alvarez dedicate the novel to
Dede?

4) Why does Trujillo kill the sisters even though they’re no longer directly involved
in the revolution? Were the women victims, martyrs, heroes, or something else?
What about the men? Why doesn’t he kill them? What does he do instead?

5) By the end of the novel, do you get used to Alvarez’s style? Why did she choose
this style? Does it work? Is she able to get you to finish reading the book even
though you know the ending? What does she focus on instead and why?

6) Alvarez says that she wants to take us beyond the legend in creating her
characters? Does she do this? How? Why?

7) What do you think she is trying to accomplish with this book? What is she saying
about truth, justice, storytelling, the search for self, the roles of women, and other
themes touched on in the book?

Bookstore Alert!!

The bookstore sends any unbought books back about halfway through the semester. They sent an email saying that it was almost that time. So, if you haven't bought the rest of the books needed for this class, and were planning to buy them at the bookstore, wither buy them now or go there and ask them to hold them for you. If not, they will send them all back and you will need to find them elsewhere.

photo © 2006 Ian Wilson | more info (via: Wylio)

Blogging Ideas for I Am An Emotional Creature

1. Explore the contradictions in the text. What do they reveal about the lives of girls today?

2. Explore the connections between 2 pieces in the text (for example: Dear Rihanna and Bad Boys or Asking the Question and It's Not A Baby... or Guide to Surviving Sex Slavery and 35 Minutes). How do they speak to one another?

3. What progression do you see taking place over the 3 sections? I find the last section the most powerful, and it makes me reflect back on the first two a bit differently. Think about how the 3 make sense to you or work together to build some larger project.

4. Look up some of the women or groups mentioned in Section 3 and explore the context a bit more. How does that enrich your understanding of the text itself?

5. Consider the epilogue. What else would you add to this poem? What else do girls need to know or be reminded of?

6. The word "feminism" isn't used in the book, but how might Ensler be defining or repackaging feminism from a 21st century girls' perspective.

7. Ensler draws distinctions between "girls" and "boys" as well as between "girls" and "adults/women." Why? What does that show?

8. As I read this book, I think a lot about "nature vs nurture." In some places it seems like Ensler essentializes, even stereotypes, girls (for example, she implies that all girls are emotional). Other places, I see her questioning/challenging those assumptions or saying something else entirely. What can you add to this conversation? Why are these questions important to think about in regard to girls in general and Ensler's project specifically?

9. What does the game "Would You Rather?" show abut girls, especially the one girl who wants to play it?

10. Thinking about one of the facts along with a few other pieces, what do girls need in High School besides "Sex Ed" in order to not get pregnant, etc.?