sempozyum_bildiri_kitabi

coming out of or not being able to come out of the closet is examined from various aspects and tied
closely to inhabited spaces.
Bechdel’s drawings include newspaper articles, negatives, book covers, diary pages, letters and
maps. The visual narrative is similar to a family photograph album with scrapbook qualities. Carefully
crafted details give the sense of a camera eye perspective, as exemplified in the drawings of chapter
beginnings where the photographic quality becomes especially pronounced. These drawings are
reproductions of actual Bechdel family photos. The poses of characters and the insistence for the
smallest details of these illustrations help to set the tone of the following sections. In fact, Bechdel
has commented in several interviews that her creative process involves copying from photographs of
objects, scenes and people. She searches for photos of the objects, buildings and atmosphere of the
time she is describing and shoots the poses of the characters she impersonates before she actually
draws the frames. Her drawing from the photographs partially explains the meticulous features of
her objects and figures.
In the book, Bechdel’s drawings of exterior and interior spaces are as detailed as the objects and
the characters. This partially has to do with Bechel’s understanding of her art. In a reading session, at
Cornell University, she discloses:
Cartoons are like maps to me in the way that they distill not just the chaos of the
three‐dimensional world but also the passage of time into a layer of pictures and a layer of
words. And I feel like in the end Fun Home is a fairly accurate map of my life. 18
Geographical and cartographical spaces act as a catalyzer in creating meaning and delving into the
character’s inner feelings. Fun Home utilizes multiple drawings of the inhabited space. Maps become
one of the touchstones for explaining the reasons behind Alison’s father’s secretive stance. Alison’s
father, Bruce Allen Bechdel spends his life in this small community despite his brief city excursions.
Alison summarizes her father’s life on a map in which she marks the father’s birthplace, house, farm
and the grave and remarks that most of their relatives also preferred a provincial life style. 19 Her
comments over the map suggest that this life style may entail different connotations than
parochialism. The caption reads, “The narrow compass suggests a provincialism on my father’s part
that is both misleading and accurate.” 20
The father is stuck between saving appearances and his homosexual reality. On one hand he tries
to keep up the appearance of a good husband and father, a homemaker and breadwinner, on the
hand, he tries to satisfy his urges through small affairs with the male babysitters or young
neighborhood boys. The father’s skill in decoration is presented as a disguise to cover up his
inadequate role of an ideal husband and father. In a family portrait session in front of the family
home, Alison observes that, “He used his skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things
appear to be what they were not, that is to say impeccable.” 21 Alison remembers how his father
single‐handedly decorated their house to match its original gothic revival style of mid‐nineteenth
century and says, “He was an alchemist of appearance, a savant of surface, a Daedalus of décor.” 22
As the above examples illustrate, the Bechdel family home yields to a number of interpretations.
The amazing decorations that are described as “dazzling displays of artfulness” 23 are in fact not
practical or functional. Alison remembers her contempt of dusting many useless ornaments that
were in the house as part of the decoration. The visitors often lose their way in the labyrinthine
corridors and the abundance of furniture. There is a big walnut bookcase in the “library” room filled
with leather‐bounded books and a “leather‐top mahogany and brass second empire desk” 24 where
the father prefers to study. These descriptions diminish the possibility of viewing the house as a safe
haven for the members of the family. The title “Fun Home” also refers to the family business of the
funeral home, which is another elaborate space full of artificial flower decorations. Alison and her