Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is a groundbreaking literary work in which an audience can experience an autobiographical piece like no other. Through the illustrations in this graphic novel as well as the very human words and concepts addressed by Bechdel, she is able to express her struggles with her family dynamics, her father's secret, her coming out, and her life as a woman. and lesbian. Throughout the play, Bechdel addresses many different themes and concepts, a few of which revolve around the typically heavy and delicate subject of death. However, according to Bechdel, death is a common thing, something that can even be joked about. Bechdel and her peers even call the funeral home down the street where her grandmother and father work the “Fun Home.” Christian W. Schneider relates all of these ideas to how they relate to the Gothic themes presented in the "Fun Home itself" throughout the graphic novel in the article "Young Maiden, Old Artificer: Building the Fun Gothic House." For Bechdel, death is an absurd concept, just like the life described by Camus, but also quite simply an absolutely ridiculous concept and therefore something that should not be feared or considered as a taboo in conversation, but rather something something we can discuss or even joke about. from time to time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get Original Essay Bechdel spent his childhood and young adulthood discussing death as a joke (especially since his father was undertaker), “visit the gravediggers, joke with the funeral”. safe sellers and teasing [his] brothers with bottles of crushed smelling salts” as a part of the routine of life (50). However, after losing her own father, she discovers that it is precisely this state of mind that made her so incapable of understanding the reality of her own father's death, always trying to be light and funny about it. subject by comforting oneself with questions like “Who embalms the undertaker when he dies?” (51), but simply feeling irritated by his death. It is here that the true absurdity of death is depicted: what could be more absurd, ridiculous and senseless than something that is most incomprehensible to those who are closest to it in their daily lives? Alison's irritation makes her experience even more human and absurd. As Christian Schneider's article explains, she spends her life "trying to escape the secrets and lies that ultimately prove to be her father's death, because their power over her life remains" (7). Alison reveals herself to be absurd, as the more she tries to escape the effects of her father's death on her life, the more power death has over her life. This paradox is as ridiculous as the aforementioned paradox of exposure to death, which causes more confusion when actually confronted with it. In reality, the absurdity of death rests entirely on its absolute paradox. Bechdel, even when she is conflicted about her own father's death, handles death very well because she understands that it is absurd. She not only considers that "death is intrinsically absurd...in the sense of ridiculous [and] unreasonable", but she also considers death to be absurd "through Camus' definition of the absurd: the universe is irrational and the meaningless human life” (47). In this definition of the absurd (as it appears in the absurdist school of thought that extends to existentialism and nihilism), one can see the simple connection between Bechdel's thoughts on life and his thought on death. Bechdel never demonstrates any need, research or.