Alison's Investigation

    One of the first things we noticed in our class discussions of Fun Home is that Alison has a very complex relationship with her father. She has the constant desire to improve her connection with him, and has clear insecurities in the thoughts she has about him. When she learns that he suddenly died from being hit by a truck, she is unsure how to feel. While others assure her that her father's death was an accident, Alison can't help but think that her father's death was a deliberate act of suicide. She notes that, "the truck driver described my father as jumping back into the road, 'as if he saw a snake.' And who knows. Perhaps he did." Despite her admission to the plausibility of the truck driver's statement, she still describes it with a dismissive tone that contrasts with her explanation of a possible suicide. She thinks of her father's death as suicide in an almost superstitious way, taking into account the small connections between her father and other details in his life, such as his appreciation for F. Scott Fitzgerald. Alison considers these small details as she pieces together a sort of puzzle and begins to wonder if his death was a suicide, "If Fitzgerald's own life hadn't turned from fairy tale to tragedy, would his stories of disenchantment have resonated so deeply with my father?... An alcoholic, dying of a heart attack at forty-four... my father was fourty-four when he died, too. Struck by the coincidence, I counted out their lifespans. The same number of months, the same number of weeks... but Fitzgerald lived three days longer... For a wild moment, I entertained the idea that my father had timed his death with this in mind, as some sort of deranged tribute" (85-86). Alison's desperation to find something that feels real and explainable about her father is reflected very clearly in her thoughts here, and lead her to doubt what she is told about her father by others. They lead her down a path of further questioning in an attempt to satisfy her desire to know the truth and feel at ease.

Alison's curiosity into her father's death stem largely from the fact that she not only believes that it was a suicide, but that she might have actually played a role in his decision to take his life. Her coming out did not seem well-received by her parents, and learning that her father was a closeted gay after he died fills her with dread. There was her chance to connect with him on a deeper level, and while he must have been reluctant to do admit to his homosexuality and seek connection to her, Alison feels as though she could have greatly helped her father had she known this information about him. After all, the society he grew up in was abusive toward homosexuals, to the point of it becoming illegal in many places, so you simply couldn't go around being open about the fact that you were gay. In the society Alison lives in, particularly at the time of her father's death, she has found the confidence to be open and proud about her homosexuality. She hangs out with other gay students in college, and does not encounter the type of persecution that her father would have had he done these things in college. This confidence and pride that Alison feels about being lesbian is something she wishes her dad could have experienced, and she likely thinks she could have played a big role in making him feel more comfortable as well. If he killed himself thinking Alison was about experience the same abuse that he did throughout life, then he was completely wrong and Alison wishes she could have made that clear to him.

As with all of her thoughts about her father, Alison's inquiry into his death is marked by uncertainty and the hope to improve her connection with her father. She learns many monumental yet confusing details about her father, such as when she finds the image of Roy in bed. While this should clearly be disturbing, Alison wonders, "why am I not properly outraged?" (100). Here, she sympathizes for her father in a way that makes her look past the concerning details, such as Roy's age and the fact that her father is a married man. Yet, something about the image makes sense to Alison, leading to the thought that, "Perhaps I identify too well with my father's illicit awe" (101). The fact that her father was engaged in homosexual practices, the same way she is, without ever admitting to it, make her feel bad for him to the point of looking past the moral wrongs of his deeds. If anything, she wishes she could have prevented him from having to censor (via weird blue marker or other ways) his true identity and desires. She feels disturbed by the fact that what she identifies with might likely have been the reason for her father's death, and is desperate to make sense of the flurry of information that largely confirms her ideas. This investigation into the death of her father certainly improved her understanding of him, though in many ways it also created more questions than answers.

Rico Duursma