FUN HOME………..4

                                       

My overall response to “Fun Home” is kind of in the middle. It was not that great experience reading it, but a good experience trying to follow the pictures with the commentary. I don’t think that it has a very strong message. It was definitely a great idea for Alison to write her story as a graphical novel. I think her idea of writing the novel with pictures in it was to show the expressions on family’s faces. Pictures tell the reader a different story than reading the commentary alone. Alison’s family is very different than a normal family. Through the pictures, you can see their moods changing. Some pictures show a perfect and a happy family, and some shows like it’s not a family, like they don’t know what a normal family is. This story is little about the family, but more about a daughter and her father. I think in some ways, they were same. Alison probably denied that her father was not a perfect man, but some how she followed his foot step. It was probably that her father’s image was unclear to her. Her father’s changing characters probably took her away from him, but still she was very connected to him. Even though he was not that nice to the children at most times, but still he cared about Alison. He showed his rights over her. He used to give bath, dress her, and teach her how to do things. Just like a normal father, he would scold her when she wouldn’t follow what he asked her to do. When he didn’t see the barrette on her head and Alison made an excuse by saying that it fell out, he said, “I don’t care! Next time I see you without it, I’ll wale you” (97). So, I think he was not a bad person, but probably the circumstance in his life made him in the way he was. I would call him a multi-character, who doesn’t live a one character life. By reading this novel, I felt that it was only her father, who she was close to, because I really didn’t see any deeper connection with her mother or her siblings. I think she was just confused about her father, but really admired him. After her father’s death, she probably realized what he really was and published this novel for him. Overall, it was a good novel, but the title really disconnected me from the book. I wish it was a different topic.