Staying close to home can really limit one's world experience--my parents actually didn't want me to come to UT at first because "it was too close to home and I needed to get out and see some other parts of the country." Needless to say, I think (and know) that they're wrong, but this quote still makes me think about the small town experience and how hard it can be for people to leave behind the things they're familiar with, even if abandoning such things is beneficial in the long run.
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| Small towns can be charming and beautiful, but there is an almost Gothic aura that surrounds the lives of those who never leave. |
"The Appalachian Ridges...historically discouraged cultural exchange. My grandmother, for example, was a Bechdel even before she married my grandfather" (126).
I just thought that it was crazy how Alison's grandmother had the same last name before she even married. It just goes to show how simple geographic barriers can create incredibly homogenous communities.
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| It isn't hard to imagine a completely different town in each of these valleys... |
"...typically with some degree of pyrotechnic splendor due to particulate from the pre-clean Air Act Paper Mill ten miles away" (128).
I just loved this alliteration--Bechdel scatters phrases like this throughout Fun Home and I honestly think that this might be one of the most cleverly written works I've ever read.
"My mother's talents were no less daunting. Once I went with her to a house where she argued with a strange man, as if she knew him intimately. This was acting" (131).
I think that Mrs. Bechdel likes acting so much because it's an escape from the bleak life that Mr. Bechdel has dragged her into. Indeed, with her plays she's able to pretend that she's a different person. What a sad thought.
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| I'm not the only one who believes in acting as an escape... |
"It's jarring to hear my father speak from beyond the grave" (133).
While I don't have any eerie recordings of any relatives from beyond the grave, I have heard very old recordings of my mother spelling out words when she was a little girl. Her old-South, Georgian accent, combined with the quality of the recording, give it a creepy, Southern Gothic feel, like something out of a Tennessee Williams play.
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| I imagine that my mom looked something like this when she made those recordings. It's so utterly strange to hear the child voice of someone who I've only ever known as an adult, as if it's something that I'm not supposed to be hearing. |
"Crossing thresholds became a time-consuming procedure since I had to tabulate the number of edges of flooring I saw there" (132).
I still have a similar OCD "thing" I do when I'm walking alone: I try to maintain my current gait but avoid stepping on a crack at all costs. This behavior specifically manifests itself when I'm at the mall, for some reason.
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| This gives me anxiety. |
"For Crissakes! I stopped for a hot dog" (139).
Another example of Bechdel's cleverness. Haha...
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| If you still don't get it, this might help. |
"Again, the troubling gap between word and meaning. My feeble language skills could not bear the weight of such a laden experience" (143).
This reminded me of the emotional gap between communicating a thought verbally versus via text. With writing, it can be sometimes hard to judge the emotions of the author (as evidenced by Alison's increasingly bland diary entries), something that I unfortunately encounter all the time with texting.
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| Emojis help some, but our emotions can be severely masked when we text. |
"My deracination was kindly abetted by various friends at college" (145).
I can't remember an instance where my accent was made fun of by someone, but I feel like this is a good example of an ongoing issue with colleges in the north--that the South, and anyone from it, is a backwards piece of white trash. Now I know that this is an exaggeration and not everyone thinks like this, but the stereotype does exist and it bugs me that a girl I know, Mary-Margaret, who goes to Penn, has had to essentially change her name to Emma because it doesn't sound as Southern.
Here's actually an article I found in The Harvard Crimson about how the South is perceived by college students in the north:
http://www.thecrimson.com/column/the-happiness-here/article/2015/3/11/harvard-making-fun-south/
"In our Wind in the Willows coloring book, my favorite page was the map" (146).
I always loved the "map page" of any books I read growing up--there's something about visually seeing the setting that really adds to the realism of a story. Case in point: Tolkien's map of Middle Earth in his Lord of the Rings series.
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| George R.R. Martin has likewise created an awesome map for his Game of Thrones books. |
"This juxtaposition of the last days of childhood with those of Nixon and the end of that larger, national innocence may seem trite" (155).
Was the Watergate Scandal really the loss of American innocence when it comes to the corruption in politics? It's crazy to think about but I guess it really was...
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| I see a similar face in many politicians that I see on TV today, a face that I don't trust. |
