The Book Wyrm

     In the second part of Souvenirs, Jason encounters an unnamed woman who has two children; Pippin (Pips) and Yvette. Yvette is fifteen years old when Pippin is ten (190), mirroring the five year age gap between Jason and Julia. The woman is also divorced, much like Jason's parents by the end of the story.      The woman starts their conversation by almost immediately comparing Jason to her son in how kindhearted he seems (189) before going into a monologue about how useless men are, and her relationship with her son. Throughout the story, it's obvious that the mother is either oblivious or doesn't mind her son's bad decisions; "Pips understands. Pips says, ‘Let’s call these pills yours, Mum. They’re our secret, but say, if anyone asks, they’re yours.’" (190). Yvette, mirroring Julia once again, plays the role of the responsible older sister; flushing Pippin's stock of drugs down the toilet and calling the police on him. Sometime after this, Pippin ran a...

 On page 100 of Fun Home, Alison Bechdel reveals that after a search through a box of family photos, she found a shirtless picture of Roy, the babysitter. Allison poses the question "Would I be assessing its aesthetic merits so calmly if it were of a seventeen-year-old girl? Why am I not properly outraged?" I think there could be a few explanations for Alison's unexpected reaction.     Bruce and Alison Bechdel grew up in very different time periods. In the 1930 and 40s when Bruce was growing up, homosexuality was considered a mental illness, with soldiers being discharged for even suspected homosexuality. Experiencing your formative years in a society that that hates you for something you can't control must be incredibly damaging, perhaps even to the point of internalization. I propose that like Frankenstein before him, society forced him into the role of monster, until he finally broke, letting himself believe that who he is is something to be detested, or at least s...

"It's full of phonies, and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day, and you have to keep making believe you give a damn if the football team loses, and all you do is talk about girls and liquor and sex all day, and everybody sticks together in these dirty little goddam cliques. [...] If you try to have a little intelligent--" (170).  "It's full of phonies and all you do is study so that you can learn enough to be smart enough to be able to buy a goddam Cadillac some day" The first line is a window into Holden's idea of intelligence and adulthood, in that the unnamed all boys school is only preparing kids to go and get a regular 9-5 office job with a decent enough salary to make a living, which is exactly what Holden doesn't want, because to him, a 9-5 office job is synonymous with the taint of adulthood; "I said no, there wouldn't be marvelous places to go to after I we...