"Fun Home": Bruce + Alison

 Throughout the story “Fun Home” we see Alison’s father Bruce prevent her from expressing her true identity. On page 15 Alison compares herself to her father using terms like, “Butch to his nelly”, and “I was Spartan to my Father’s Athernian”. These terms show how polar opposite they were, we also see this in the scene where he is telling her to change her outfit. This connects to Bruce’s need to be in control.

Alison also talks about Bruce’s obsession with the house and furniture, and this connects to him controlling her. On page 14 Alison describes this relationship, “I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children, and his children like furniture.” This quote shows how Alison felt controlled by Bruce, like he wanted her to look nice and play the part. This is also shown through a quote on page 16, “He used his skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things appear to be what they were not.” Bruce made Alison appear to be a super feminine girl throughout her life by controlling what she wore. 


I believe that Bruce controlled Alison this way to make her “normal” in a way. Since Bruce lived an unhappy life of sorts pretending to be what he was not in his marriage, I believe he controlled Alison in this way to almost save her from the life he had. Later in the book on page 119 Alison reflects on her interaction with the “bulldyke”, “The vision of the truck driving bulldyke sustained me through the years… as perhaps it haunted my father.”  This interaction is another example of Bruce pushing Alison away from expressing her true identity. Bruce wanted to prevent Alison from being (maybe becoming in his eyes) gay, so that she did not have to suffer an unhappy life as he did. I think his death is also important to mention. If it was suicide, I believe it could have been partially from jealousy/envy of Alsion being able to express herself and live happily as gay. Bruce projected on Alison controlling her for most of her life, so that he could live and style more frilly outfits through her, but also in some ways to try to protect her from the life he lived.


Comments

  1. MitchellApril 4, 2025 at 12:35 PM

    I agree that this book clearly depicts Alison's queerness as a "true identity," something that is present in her character and experience from her earliest memories, even if the expressions of that identity are shaped and limited by the social and cultural prevailing values of the time. As you note, Alison depicts herself as "naturally" inclined to be butch even as a young girl, and she now can easily view all of her more gender-conforming behaviors as a performance, often explicitly ordered and curated by Bruce. She is able to more or less "pass" as a "straight girl" (or a "normal girl," since we're talking about a period in life before sexuality becomes a thing), largely because of how Bruce shapes her image (choosing her clothes, hairstyle, room furnishings). And he seems to pick up on something when she gets goggle-eyed at the butch trucker in the diner, too. The novel pointedly depicts homosexuality not as a "choice" but as a core part of Alison's identity from the start--it's the outward expression that is the "choice," and kids don't always get to choose their own outfits to church or for the school picture.

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  2. Rishabh PrasanthApril 6, 2025 at 6:53 AM

    Cate, your choice to write about Bruce's want for preservation is very interesting to me. I think that this is a fact which is commonly overlooked and was not discussed in class as much as some other topics. I agree with your conclusion that Bruce does not want Alison to feel the way he feels. He has dealt with the pain of suppression for so long and does not wish that for his daughter. On the other hand, maybe his want to protect his daughter is a factor that makes her want to be herself. The text touches on this when it talks about Alison wanting to "compensate" for her father's lack of "masculinity."

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  3. Heidi WangApril 7, 2025 at 5:55 PM

    Hi Cate! I agree that Bruce and Alison’s relationship is definitely a projection of Bruce’s deeper fears about himself and how he repesents itself. He wants Alison to be normal because he is not. He wants her to be girly because he can’t and because he doesn’t feel normal. The point you bring up at the end about this projection being one out of protection is an interesting point and I think it definitely has some truth to it. Great post!

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  4. Larissa DolcosApril 7, 2025 at 8:26 PM

    Very good post, Cate! I completely agree that Bruce projected his own problems onto Alison throughout much of their time together. She always had to be perfect in the ways that he was not. But I really like your point that he did this out of care. He didn't want to force her into anything, but he also didn't want her to experience the difficult life that he had to live. So it's very possible that he thought that he was protecting her.

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