Is she finally free?

 As I read Fun Home, I found myself thinking, what does Alison Bechdel feel about her father and her family in general? On the surface, the abundance of comments such as “I grew to resent the way my father treated his furniture like children and his children like furniture” (14) or "He used his skillful artifice not to make things, but to make things appear to be what they were not" (16) makes it clear that she doesn’t like him personally—but he still means a lot to her, and his story is an important part of hers, or well, she wouldn’t center the book around her family and him so much. 

Yet, she also feels like something was missing from her life because of him, which makes it seem like the biggest feeling she felt towards him was distance. She mentioned “his shame inhabited our house as pervasively and invisibly as the aromatic musk of aging mahogany” (20) to convey how much he tried to hide from her and the rest of the family. She also said, "He really was there all those years, a flesh-and-blood presence steaming off the wallpaper, digging up the dogwoods, polishing the finials, smelling of sawdust and sweat and designer cologne, but I ached as though he were already gone” (23) because while her entire family climate and physical household aesthetic represented him, he was somehow not a close person to her. She even said her mom told her not to make any comments about his appearance (or him overall as well), whether positive or negative. It seems like “new roommate” would fit their vibe more than any other relationship title, let alone "father/daughter." Even her coming out via letter to them wasn’t surprising (although funny).

After he died, her reflections became even more illuminating. One of the most memorable lines of the book for me was, "If only they made smelling salts to induce grief-stricken swoons rather than snap you out of them…" The sole emotion I could muster was irritation when the pinch-faced funeral director laid his hand on my arm consolingly” (52). I also laughed when she deadpanned, “[he’s] stuck in the mud for good this time” (54), and last but not least (and this is just sad, honestly) "Dad's death was not a new catastrophe but an old one that had been unfolding very slowly for a long time” (83).  

Later on, she talks about her father's dynamic with her mother, and honestly, that made me depressed. It made me question love a little. May I never find a love like theirs. I also agree with Alison that they make me fear settling for someone not perfect for me more than being alone. Some examples of these quotes….

“I employ these allusions to James and Fitzgerald not only as descriptive devices but also 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. My parents seemed almost embarrassed by the fact of their marriage.” (67)

“[her mother] ends up ‘ground in the very mill of the conventional'" (72)

"Perhaps this is when I cemented the unspoken compact with them that I would never get married, that I would carry on to live the artist's life they had each abdicated.” (73).

So, over the course of the novel, it seems like she becomes more and more distanced from him, which I consider not a bad thing. It means she's ready to move on in life and think of happier things than the man her father was and how cold her family was. In this way, this novel definitely feels like full closure, hope, and maybe even freedom for Alison.