Fun Home- Maus

-For this weeks blog I figured I would compare Fun Home to a book mentioned in our last class that I had to read last semester, Maus by Art Spiegelman. Both books are photographic narratives and use pictures with small text to tell the reader the story and help them visualize the story.

-Maus, similar to Fun Home has the main character, Artie who is, like Bechdel, the author of the book. In the book he tells his father’s story about Germany and his experiences in the holocaust.

-One thing that is very similar between the two books besides using comics to tell stories is that Artie and his father share an awkward relationship just like Bechdel and her father.

-Facial expressions are used to great lengths in both of these stories and the expressions tell stories on their own. In Fun Home, we see Bechdel’s father using very blank expressions and only once does he crack a smile. In Maus, though the characters have the faces of mice, Artie’s father also has very flat facial expressions, sometimes even seeming depressing. 

Fun Home...

So far, Fun home by Alison Bechdel has been a very amusing story. When it comes to reading, I’ve always been one of those people who find it much easier to find interest in a book if it has pictures and luckily, this one is filled with them. At first I anticipated that Fun Home would initially be a comic but it turns out that it is much more than that. I think that Fun Home serves as many different things. I see it as a very illustrative comic, an autobiography of Bechdel and her child hood (as well as details about her father), and overall it all comes together to form a very well narrated story.  The pictures in the book help tell Bechdel’s story and I think that even without the writing and narrations from Bechdel, the pictures could make the story interesting and fun enough to still follow. Though I have not yet finished the book, I find that Bechdel’s narrations about her childhood and her relationship with her father can be very catching. So far it seems like Bechdel’s family is possibly a dysfunctional one.

Butterflies...

5) By the end of the novel, do you get used to Alvarez’s style? Why did she choose this style? Does it work? Is she able to get you to finish reading the book even though you know the ending? What does she focus on instead and why?

By the end of in the time of the butterflies I did find that I became used to Alvarez’s style of writing. However, at the start of the story it was very difficult simply because for example, Eve Ensler’s writing was very detailed and deep to the point that it kept you wanting more and it was easy to read and understand. Alvarez’s style of writing is more difficult to read simply because of using flashbacks such as Dede’s interview and the way that some character’s narrations change from 1^st person view to 3^rd person view depending on which sister it was.

I think Alvarez’ purpose behind switching 1^st and 3^rd person views was to force the reader to be more into the story and to think more about the story. Part of me thinks that maybe Alvarez had different narrations for different characters to help us remember who is who which story applies to that sister. For example, I initially remembered Dede basically based on her 3^rd person view and her flashback to her interview. It was like they served as a tab for me to distinguish Dede apart from the other sisters.

Alvarez does succeed at capturing the complete attention of the reader or at least she did in my reading of the story. I found the story to be amusing to read once I was used to her style of writing. Though it made the reading more difficult it kept the reader interested and begging for the next piece in what is a great story.

Dede: Timeline...

-1925: Dede Mirabel is born.

-Minerva is born.

-Mate is born.

-Takes part in fortune telling with Papa @ age 6 or 7.

-1938: Attends private school @ age 13. All of the sisters are sent to school with the exception of Mate.

-Meets Lio.

-Lio Leaves.

-Gets engaged and everntually married to Jaimito.

-Goes to ball with sisters. Trujillo interest against Minerva sister begins here now.

-Father gets arrested (relationship changer).

-1953: Father dies.

-Gives birth to her first child.

-Dede and Jaimeto’s ice cream shop and restaurant both go under and fail leading to bankruptcy.

-Patria tries to bury guns in the field and Dede refuses to help her sisters in rebellious acts. She refuses.

-Dede goes to church and Jaimito sees her with revolutionary priest.

-Jaimeto packs up kids.

-Dede goes to mother in laws house and tries to reconcile.

-1960: Sister have died and Jaimeto is the only husband not incarcerated.

-1994: present in story. Interview

Butterflies...

Here is the first of two blogs I owe for last week...

In my opinion, in the time of the butterflies is a pretty dragging story. Not to say that it is a bad story, I just found it to be difficult to read and because of that, it became less enjoyable. The story seems like it can be very depressing at times except for small areas of hope and there is so much struggle. The Mirabel sisters and their country are constantly held down and trapped. Whether it’s by their ruler, Trujillo, or their future planned ahead of them for school and marriage, the sisters are held back. I found the story to be difficult mostly because of the back and fourth between years and memories. The back and fourth makes it easy to get confused in where you are in the story and where it goes from there. For example, in the start with Dede the story is in 1994 and in the interview she reverts back to 1943. Another thing that makes the story more different to read is the way the narrations change. Some are in third person view like Dede and some are in first person. This story of the Mirabel sisters portrays a life of struggle with politics, government and like our other stories, life. (that’s the only thing this story has in common with the others.)

Reading vs. Performance

For this blog, I chose to write about the differences between reading a story, poem, or monologue and actually seeing it performed.

- This past friday in class we went over a story from Ensler's "I am an emotional creature" story. In the story the main subject is sex. As you read the story or poem as it seems to be written in a poetic format, you feel as if it's just one person saying many peoples different point of views on the subject. However, when we broke the story down into characters and had the characters perform the story for us in front of the class everything changed. The tone changed, the setting changed, and overall the whole atmosphere changed.
- The different expressions, voices, and gestures changed the entire poem, to me. When reading the story I never thought of it being a group of people or friends talking about sex, I thought of it more as the writer compiling these experiences and putting them together in the story.

- The difference between reading a story and seeing it performed is also shown by Eve Ensler with her Vagina monologue performances that I have watched on the internet. The tone and use of expression through something little like more emphasis on a word or lengthening a word out has a great effect on the viewer or listener. For example, when the man sitting in the front of the room performing as a character said "it(sex) should be illegal" using a higher pitched and more strung out voice, it made everyone laugh because it seems like the quote was supposed to be funny but, yet when you read it it doesn't come off as a joke or something intended to be funny at all.