Sahnan's Spectacular Stories

 The opening scene of Fun Home places Bruce on the floor of their living room, holding Alison in the air. Alison immediately compares her own height and danger of falling to the Greek myth of Icarus, the figure who–after his father, Daedalus’ invention–flew too close to the sun and fell into the Aegean sea. At the start of the book, Bruce is Daedalus, and Alison is Icarus. However, in Fun Home, Alison says that she isn’t the one who falls, but Bruce is. Bruce’s ‘fall’ can be interpreted in different ways, but I think the sequencing of the book attempts to show his fall as how her perspective of him shifts. At the beginning of the book, Bruce’s character is much simpler; we know that he’s a perfectionist, has a short temper, and is generally very cold to his family. Despite her best efforts, Alison struggles to find meaningful connection and interaction with her father. For so much of Alison’s childhood, and even up to the months before Bruce dies, Alison barely knows about him....

  Success is a big theme throughout Esther’s entire academic career. She is often at the top of her class and receiving large amounts of scholarship money or participating in prestigious internships. The book starts out in New York City, where Esther has a summer internship editing a fashion magazine. Esther attends Harvard University during the school year and tells stories of acing physics tests for example while the rest of her class is struggling. Despite Esther’s great academic success, she often feels over her head or out of place in these prestigious environments. She describes being uncomfortable with Doreen’s adventures in New York, or with the extravagance of The Ladies Day Banquet . Beyond just feeling out of place in the big city, Esther feels as if she’s not even qualified to participate in this internship: she doesn’t have the same certainty about her career and future that so many of the women around her do. Esther’s boss at the magazine, Jay Cee, only makes Esther m...