Bechdel's Purpose For Creating A Graphic Novel

In the book “Fun Home” Bechdel expresses her autobiography through pictures. This book was one of the first graphic novels I have ever read. This novel is unique because of the fact that Bechdel uses a sort of different way to tell her story. What was Bechdel’s purpose for using comics to write this novel? What was her purpose for writing and creating the novel “Fun Home”?

When starting to read this book, I really did not understand why an author would put pictures in a novel. As I continued reading the book I noticed that Bechdel’s pictures and comics went well with the emotion she was writing about. For instance, throughout the book the father’s facial expression was always plain and usually did not express any emotion.  I feel that without the comics that Bechdel presents in the novel, readers would not have realized Bruce’s (the father) detached emotion. Throughout the book Bruce seems distant from his family; he does not show the love and affection that a father usual shows towards their wife and children. Considering his job as an undertaker, he really had no choice but to have detached emotions, and the graphics really showed that.

I feel that Bechdel’s purpose of writing this novel was to tell her story in a way that was unusual but different. She was successful in separating herself from other authors and making her novel stand out from the ordinary autobiographies. My first reaction to the novel was that it was a weird book to read; but once I actually continued reading it and going through every chapter, I realized that this book is unique and an interesting read. This book not only kept my attention with its words but with its very detailed and descriptive pictures following the story Bechdel was telling. This book is a novel that sticks out from any piece of work I have ever read.