“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme”-Mark Twain

Alison and Jonathan are trying to discover themselves and they do this by obsessively trying to understand their parents. They are both fueled by fear of turning out like their parents, but as Mark Twain said “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme” and we see this to be true in both the book and the movie.

Throughout “Fun Home” Alison relates herself to her father as a way to try and understand herself. She spends most of her life obsessively trying to understand him hoping to be able to take her

life in a different direction. From the beginning we see Alison and her father as very similar people who will be faced with similar obstacles. Like her father, Alison had obsessive compulsive disorder. Alison never explicitly says that her and her father share this disorder, but she eludes to it throughout the entire book. On page 18 we see Alison’s father punishing the children for the vase being moved to close to the edge of the table, thus out of place. Then Alison spends several pages discussing her obsessive compulsive disorder and how she “cured” herself, which was an obsessive process in itself. Alison and her father also share a love for books, mythological and psychological, any book that they can put themselves into to try and make sense of their feelings and their life. We know that Alison will not take the same approach to life as her father, but we can argue that it will be similar in many ways.  It is also very interesting that Alison believes her father’s death is her beginning as if now she doesn’t have to see him as a constant reminder of what she could be and now she feels free to live her life.

Similarly, Jonathan’s obsession with his mother is a way for him to figure himself out. At the end of the movie he says that he is scared of ending up like his mother so he spends most of his life trying

to understand her, which is virtually impossible with a mental disorder. Through the numerous clips it is obvious that Jonathan is emotionally disturbed due to the events in his life, being put in foster care and beaten, knowing that his mother is in and out of the hospital due to a mental disorder, and dealing with the feelings of being gay and being unsure. He is eventually diagnosed with depersonalization disorder. As far as we know Renee was a normal child until the events in her life eventually overcame her. She was paralyzed after a fall and received shock treatments, she was raped in front of Jonathan, and then was in and out of the hospital and put on various medications. According to the movie there were no signs of Renee’s schizophrenia until after she was raped.  The late diagnosis of schizophrenia makes Jonathan fear that one day he will be diagnosed with another mental disorder. Unlike Alison, Jonathan doesn’t seem to ever get relief in his life. As weird as it is to say that when Alison’s father passed away she was relieved, it is true, and Jonathan has yet to encounter this relief. I believe that Alison and Jonathan will in some ways repeat their parents’ history and at the same time make their own.

 

Death and the Maiden

As we discussed in class there are many ways to interpret “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” but after doing a little bit of research I found out that Oates had the “Death and the Maiden” folktales theme in mind when writing this short story. Knowing that Oates had the old “Death and the Maiden” folktales in mind does change how interpret the text. It could be argued that Oates used the death and maiden folktale of Hades and Persephone to inspire this shorty story.
 

Hades was the God of the underworld and Persephone was the daughter of Zeus (Hades’ brother) and Demeter. Persephone was a virgin and is known as the goddess of grain, agriculture, and fertility. Hades saw Persephone and fell in love with her. He wanted her to himself and he knew that Demeter (Persephone’s mother) would never approve of the marriage so he decided to abduct her while she was gathering flowers on a plain in Sicily. Hades arrived on a four-house chariot and took Persephone into the Underworld before anyone could notice. Persephone did resist and call for help, but before anyone noticed she was already descending into the chasm. It is said that when Hades swooped down to collect Persephone that he “scooped her up with one arm, and literally and figuratively deflowered her—leaving the plain scattered with blossoms of every color.” Demeter searched the earth for Persephone and after a whole year she finally found out where she was and began convincing Hades to let her go. He agreed to let her go, but Persephone had not eaten anything while in the underworld and when it was time for her to go Hades begged her to just eat something before she went home. Anyone who eats anything from the Underworld is forced to live there. Because of Hades trickery Rhea, the mother of Zeus, Demeter, and Hades decided that Persephone is to live in the Underworld for six months out of the year and has the freedom to live with Demeter for the remainder of the year.

Much like Persephone, Connie was a virgin and also was a representation of fertility. There is a definite connection between Connie and Persephone, especially knowing that this story deals so much with Connie’s sexuality and that Persephone is the goddess of fertility. Both girls are taken against their will and are both seen as sexual objects. Also, both girls were reluctant to be taken with these men and both made attempts to call for help, both being unsuccessful. Arnold Friend comes to collect Connie in his gold jalopy and is successful in taking her with him before anyone can notice, just as Hades abducted Persephone in his chariot before anyone could notice. The similarity that stuck out to me the most was the connection between Hades literally and figuratively deflowering Persephone and the “figurative” rape of Connie “she felt her breath start jerking back and forth in her lungs as if it was something Arnold Friend was stabbing her with again and again with no tenderness.” This quote, much like the one regarding Persephone’s rape is filled with sexual references and tells us what has and will happen to these girls. Both men in this story have no regard for the girls, only their own wants and needs and both take the girls to a different world. Hades takes Persephone to the Underworld while Arnold takes Connie to “land Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it.” Both of these stories can most definitely be qualified as “Death and the Maiden” stories.

There are some obvious differences in the “Death and the Maiden” folktale of Hades and Persephone and Connie and Arnold Friend, but the two stories definitely have some major similarities and it seems that Oates did indeed have this story in the back of her mind while writing “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?”