A Book in a Page
The Telescopic Lens in the First Page of Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
By Hannah Rome
On the first page of the graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (2006), Alison Bechdel uses both text and illustration to introduce the memoir’s central themes-- identity, family dynamics, and loss-- while also foreshadowing plot and establishing tone. She achieves this through telescoping - a literary device coined by the memoirist and poet Mary Karr that condenses time and details to emphasize key moments (Karr). In just three images and four sentences, Bechdel instantly immerses the reader into the story with minimal exposition. It’s an efficient entry into the world of Fun Home, a pledge that the economy of the graphic novel form will be an asset for Bechdel’s storytelling, showcasing her ability to convey her complex family history with masterful precision.
Bechdel begins Fun Home with thematic telescoping that foreshadows the memoir’s motifs of identity, family, and loss. The opening sentence, “Like most fathers, mine could occasionally be prevailed on for a spot of ‘airplane,’” (Bechdel 3) introduces her father, Bruce, and hints at their tense relationship. In the accompanying panel, her father, Bruce, lies on the floor disinterestedly while Alison gingerly holds his leg at a ninety-degree angle, cajoling him into the game. In this introduction to their relationship, Bechdel shows that Bruce is a reserved, distant parent, having to be “prevailed on” and manipulated into position in order to engage. In the first panel alone, Bechdel hints that their dynamic was tenuous from the beginning, strained by Alison’s desire and her father’s opposing reluctance.
The second sentence and panel allude to Alison’s deference to her father during childhood. The text, “As he launched me, my full weight would fall on the pivot point between his feet and my stomach,” (Bechdel 3) implies that a significant part of herself was hinged upon her father’s rearing (”launching”). As a child, Alison’s selfhood (her “full weight”) depended on the choice and discretion of her parents, specifically her father. Later on in the first chapter, we learn the extent of Bruce’s tyranny. He employs the children to abide by his obsessive attention to their home, treats Alison as a doll he can dress to satisfy his feminine sensibilities (despite her masculine ones), and uses his outwardly perfect family to camouflage his transgressions.
The final image of the first page reveals the climactic finish to “airplane.” The line “It was a discomfort well worth the physical contact, and certainly worth the moment of perfect balance when I soared above him,” (Bechdel 3) reveals that despite her father’s dominion, those rare moments of connection sustained her desire to be close to him. It also foreshadows how adult Alison will reconcile her family dynamic, her father’s artifice, and her own identity. She will have her own “moment of perfect balance,” when she is finally able to “[soar] above him,” gaining perspective on her past while embracing her identity in precisely the way he couldn’t.
In the fourth and final sentence of the first page, Bechdel denotes, “In the circus, acrobatics where one person lies on the floor balancing another are called ‘Icarian Games.’” (Bechdel 3) This allusion foreshadows her father’s ultimate demise and the nature of it, by Bruce “flying too close to the Sun,” destroyed by his own hubris. By the end of the first page, we understand that Fun Home is not just about Alison’s relationship with her father and her own self-discovery, but also about loss and her father’s downfall. Through the use of thematic telescoping, Bechdel lays out major premises and plot points of her memoir, and commits to seeing them through.
The tone of the opening page establishes a critical framework for Fun Home’s emotional cadence. From the first line, Bechdel’s narration is free of resentment or bitterness. Instead, it reflects yearning and sympathy for her father. Even as she alludes to Bruce’s ultimate downfall, she softens it with analogy. By comparing her father to Icarus, Bechdel implies that his demise was fated, mythic, even inevitable. She universalizes her father’s story, making it an examination of human frailty, rather than an admonition. Using allegory also creates emotional distance between Bechdel and the character of her father (this may be more implicit than constructed - Bechdel says later on that her parents are “...most real to me in fictional terms” (Bechdel 67)), further solidifying her role as a reliable and insightful narrator. Rather than leading with contempt, Bechdel employs an empathetic, analytical tone, guiding the reader’s perspective and inviting them into her story on her terms.
Alison Bechdel also employs the telescopic lens by layering the panel illustrations and inherent textual elements with symbolic details, foreshadowing and alluding to broader narrative arcs. Artistic elements, such as coloring, linework, and composition establish a sense of place, time, and nostalgic atmosphere. The etched linework evokes the fuzzy, incomplete memories of childhood, as seen in the Afghan rug in the third panel. The roughly sketched rug symbolizes the limitations of Bechdel’s memory, and the challenge of reconciling her past with her present recollection.
The composition of the first panel works to ground the reader in a sense of time and place, while slowly unfolding thematic meaning. Bruce’s relaxed, lounging position on the floor indicates that we are in the family home, most likely the living room. The room’s thick, heavy curtains, tidy chair rail, and impersonal art denote the formal, orderly, and meticulous nature of the home that reflects the family’s outward presentation. The home could seemingly date back hundreds of years, but Bruce and Alison’s clothing in addition to the button panel on the wall firmly situate the reader in modern times. Bechdel also uses clothing and coloring to draw a contrast between Alison and her father. Alison is depicted in light colors, including a powder-blue striped shirt, reflecting the whimsy and innocence of childhood. Bruce wears impenetrable black, signifying his stoic, inaccessible nature.
In her illustrations, Bechdel uses facial expressions and body language to deepen the emotional complexity of her characters. Both Alison and Bruce’s countenances and postures imply apathy at best, and despondency at worst, reflecting the melancholia that pervades their home. In the first panel, as Alison initiates “airplane,” she appears dejected, and her father, bemused. Alison’s posture is slightly hunched as she limply lifts his leg, while Bruce lethargically props himself up by the elbows. The second panel focuses instead on the physical action of the game, showing Alison pitched upward by Bruce’s legs as he holds her hands for stability. The character’s faces are concealed, leaving an emotional void in the place of expression.
The omission is deliberate, however, inviting reader interpretation. One may even imagine a fleeting moment in which Alison and her father are rapt in play. This strategic ambiguity is reinforced by the game’s visual metaphor: the push and pull inherent in “airplane” mirrors their fraught relationship. Alison’s effort to connect contrasts with her father’s detachment. She struggles to reconcile her burgeoning identity with his repression and duplicity. By drawing the reader into this dynamic, Bechdel deepens their investment and prepares them for an emotionally complex journey. In the third panel, Bechdel reclaims narrative control, revealing Bruce’s sole dysphoric expression. In the same frame, though Alison is seen face down from above, her energetic body language suggests her own solitary enjoyment. The discrepancy in their experience of the game and the “rare physical contact” it begets underscores their emotional distance and foreshadows the tension to come.
Within the panel illustrations, Bechdel employs textual elements to enliven characters, ground the reader in the story, and foreshadow critical moments. On the first page, the speech bubble in the second panel, a podium for one small “Oof,” (Bechdel 3) immediately humanizes the characters depicted. It not only reflects Alison’s discomfort in the moment, but also reminds the reader that the characters are real, active participants, and not just illustrations of Bechdel’s recollection. While the memoir opens with omniscient narration, the “Oof” draws the reader into the scene, grounding them in the past while maintaining the narrator’s command. Here, the speech bubble is used as a telescoping instrument, seamlessly blending past events with present-day reflection, evoking a layered sense of time and perspective. They provide terra firma, grounding the reader in the world of Bechdel’s memories, where characters are alive, dialogue is animated, and the past shapes the future.
The final illustrated textual element that completes the foreshadowing of Bruce’s character arc is the revelation of Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) in the third panel as the book he reads in the first. If the reference to Icarus portends Bruce’s downfall, Tolstoy’s tragic novel elucidates its nature. In many ways, the story of Fun Home mirrors Anna Karenina, with Bruce embodying the traits of both Anna Karenina and Alexei Alexandrovich. Outwardly, Bruce echoes Alexei’s distant and fastidious demeanor, while his inner life aligns more closely with Anna’s character arc. Both Bruce and Anna engage in reckless, transgressive affairs that culminate in their death. Most strikingly, both Bruce and Anna meet their end through vehicular suicide - Anna by train, and Bruce by truck. Like Tolstoy’s novel, Fun Home poignantly explores the devastating consequences of flouting societal norms in pursuit of personal gratification.
Graphic novels are uniquely suited to the technique of telescoping. The combination of text and images amplifies the effect, allowing authors to collapse and juxtapose past and present with immediacy and precision. Text in this medium requires brevity - each phrase must contain deliberate meaning, distilling depth into very few words. If text carries the thematic weight of a graphic novel, images provide essential character development, invoking details like facial expressions, body language, and their evolution over time. Readers instinctively identify with these visual cues, seeing themselves reflected in the simplified, universal features that comics often employ. As Scott McCloud demonstrates in Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (1993), facial abstraction can lead to stronger resonation with characters by reducing them to their essence, to the core we all share (McCloud ch. 2). This visual shorthand circumvents the need for excessive exposition, instead placing readers directly into the setting and emotional landscape of the narrative. The graphic novel’s textual economy and emotionally rich imagery make it a multi-layered medium. Through it, telescoping becomes a singularly adept tool to synthesize time, memory, and narrative with lucidity.
By utilizing the telescopic lens, Alison Bechdel establishes an unspoken contract with the reader in just the first page of Fun Home. The story is distilled into three images and four sentences, each element precisely conveying its plot, tone, and central themes. Bechdel not only overcomes the challenge of brevity inherent to the graphic novel form, but transforms it into a potent narrative device. Through the seamless interplay of text and illustration, she foreshadows the memoir’s trajectory, while developing its characters and emotional landscape. Bechdel invites her audience to explore her past and present, her ultimate promise being depth in every detail, waiting to be unearthed.