Deprived or Delighted?

The pictures in Fun Home depict Alison’s parents as angry and depressed with a touch of defeat. Although her father was already having homosexual affairs in Germany, he and Alison’s mother were starry-eyed and completely in love. Bruce wrote multiple love letters that Alison compared to famous authors. They would have occasional fights as all couples do but other than that living in Germany with the love of each other’s lives seemed like a utopia.

However, at the same time as Alison’s mother became pregnant Bruce’s father dies and is forced to transform from romantic soldier in Europe to funeral director with three children in a mundane town in Pennsylvania. The dream was over. Alison’s parents needed to find ways to replace the happiness they once had but nothing could replace what they once had. I am not sure what having kids is like but from Alison’s depiction of her parents emotions draws me to the conclusion that it cannot always compare to the romantic years in a distant country.

Conversely, Alison’s childhood was not as disturbed or traumatizing as most people would expect if they hadn’t read the book. She does mention that her family was not as physically affectionate as other families and that her surroundings were either morbid or a beautiful cover up for the ugly truth (for example an old house or sexual taboos), but she was a happy child with friends and hobbies. Her homosexuality was apparent at a very young age but wanting to wear plaid shirts and manly boots is not related to radiating depression around her. In the first panels she plays airplane with her father and he teaches her to swim in the last panels; whether her father is faking this playful image or he is genuinely having fun with his only daughter, Alison was not deprived or disturbed as a child.