Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Fun Home is a story of Alison Bechdel’s childhood.

• How is this a coming-of-age story? (topic sentence)
• Although Bechdel does not tell the story in order, we still see her grow from childhood to adulthood at different points. Use examples from the text that explain what growth happens at different points in Bechdel’s life.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, evaluate how Bechdel’s coming of age was affected by her family.

2. Books and literature is a recurring motif throughout this novel.

• Why are the allusions to different literary texts important to this story? (topic sentence)
• Provide three examples of references to literary texts and the role that they play in Bechdel’s narrative.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, connect these allusions back to Alison’s relationship with her father.

3. Flowers also appear throughout the graphic memoir.

• What do flowers symbolize? How does this relate to Bruce? (topic sentence)
• Provide three examples from the text that explore how Bechdel uses flowers to reveal something about her father.
• In your concluding sentence or sentences, connect your argument to either the theme of Artifice and Self-Expression or that of Closeted Queerness and Queer Experience.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. What is Helen’s role in Fun Home? What effect did she have on Bechdel’s childhood, according to this graphic memoir? How does her absence speak as much as her presence? Add text details to your discussion to support your argument and ultimately connect your argument back to the theme of Dichotomies and Parallels.

2. Alison constantly compares herself and her father to different literary figures. How does her decision to do so help us better understand her and her father? Use at least three comparisons in the body of your essay to support your argument. In your conclusion, connect this back to one of the major themes of this work: Artifice and Self-Expression, Dichotomies and Parallels, or Closeted Queerness and Queer Experience.

3. The theme of Artifice and Self-Expression helps us to think about Bruce, Alison, and Helen as artists, each trying to pursue their own interests. Using both the narration and visual storytelling elements of this graphic memoir, write an essay in which you analyze how one of these characters uses their self-expression, ultimately connecting it back to the main theme and its place in the graphic memoir. Be sure to use examples from the text to support your argument.