The Odyssey, the Adams Family, Albert Camus, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, The Taming of the Shrew, The Importance of Being Earnest, PROUST, The Wind in the Willows, James Joyce, Kate Millet, on and on and on.......
"I employ these allusions ... not only as descriptive devices, but because my parents are most real to me in fictional terms. And perhaps my cool aesthetic distance itself does more to convey the Arctic climate of our family than any particular literary comparison." -"Fun Home" p.67
Bechdel employs a great deal of intertextuality to describe relationships, people, and dynamics in the novel.
These are some of the many textual references I took note of:
The map of Wind in the Willows is used in comparison to her town Beech Creek (p.146), the early life of her father is described in terms of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life and characters (p.62),
her own diary is used as a description of an author's narrative voice slowly losing authority and credibility,
radical feminist texts are used to explore her sexual enlightenment and homosexuality
James and the Giant Peach....pornography!
The Taming of the Shrew and The Importance of Being Earnest, plays that her parents were in, are used to describe the personalities and crumbling relationship of her parents' marriage.
The dictionary!
Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care book is used by her mother, this emphasizes the emotional distance that Alison and her mother had from each other.
What else did you find????
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