Interior and Exterior of the Bechdel residence

The very title of Alison Bechdel’s memoir indicates the primary setting: HOME. Whether the darkly entertaining world of the family funeral home, the eponymous ‘Fun Home’, or the ornate gothic-revival residence curated by her father, Bechdel reconstructs her memories around our central theme of ‘home’. FUN HOME, in many ways, details the dysfunction of family life through illustration and annotation: the “PERMANENT LINOLEUM SCAR” excerpt perfectly captures how a moment of anger leaves an indelible mark on a world, especially for a child.

PERMANENT LINOLEUM SCAR

FUN HOME also explores the geographic aspects of home life, illustrating the provincial nature of Bruce Bechdel’s life over a relatively-small geographic area.

Map of Bruce Bechdel’s Life

Mapping Home

Home, if one gleans anything from FUN HOME, should seem an appropriately complex topic. But how do we go about defining and understanding home? Do we think about geographic location? Maps? I can almost always find my way home thanks to GPS data and apps on my smartphone, but without these tools I might have some trouble depending on where I am now. Geographic data is useful when thinking about home, since where we grew up, where we choose to live, and where we choose to go all forms part of our core identity. Earlier in this course, we read Jeannette Walls’ memoir The Glass Castle, and built a digital map using Google myMaps platform that traces her family journey.

After this assignment, I decided to build a map connecting the various homes in my life. The experience of mapping out my life put my journey into a clearer context; seeing where I came from helped me better understand where I want to go next.

The digital humanities has taught me how powerful digital tools can be when used to illustrate complex ideas in simple ways. The complex changes, both geographic and otherwise, in how we define ‘home’ for ourselves seem a perfect fit for this kind of digital mapping tool. While Bechdel may have used the comic form to illustrate her changing ideas of home, the less-artistically gifted of us can use maps like the ones above to explore our pasts and ourselves.