Image by Jr Korpa, via Unsplash.
by Navreen Parmar
Is a child’s drawing a reflection of reality or the imaginary? Children, in fact, sketch their homes, families, and toys as they see them and to the extent of their artistic abilities, yet they also draw fantastical creatures and superhumans. Is their perception of the world then not a combination of both reality and imagination, as they not only “paint […] what [they] drea[m], but what [they] se[e]” (Baudelaire 298)? Is this borderless understanding not a truthful expression of our world, despite what Baudelaire suggests? Unlike Baudelaire and his claims of imagination as truth in The Salon of 1859, Bechdel’s autobiographical graphic novel Fun Home suggests that the combination of both objectivity and subjectivity, realistic sketches of photographs and cartoonish drawings, result in the most truthful expression of her life.
Bechdel, from an early age, seems to quite strictly value authenticity in objectivity and explores it through objective expressions and photographic sketches, yet an inexorable subjectivity remains. She begins to capture her truth through simple objectivity, as “the minutely-lettered phrase I think begins to crop up between [her] comments. It was a sort of epistemological crisis. How did [she] know that the things [she] was writing were absolutely, objectively true? […] All [she] could speak for was [her] own perceptions, and perhaps not even those” (Bechdel 141). This questioning of material reality is also brought up by Baudelaire, who asks “whether [we] [are] quite certain of the existence of external nature; or […] if [we] kn[ow] nature in its entirety” (Baudelaire 298). Although Baudelaire suggests this uncertainty demands subjective expressions of our world, Bechdel responds to it by taking on a highly obscure expression of objectivity, stripping her experience of the world from her very self, as if “[t]he universe [existed] without man” (Baudelaire 307), for she “beg[ins] drawing [the symbol] right over names and pronouns” (142) such as “I”. This desire for objectivity, in spite of her inevitable use of pronouns, is also evident in Bechdel’s use of photo-realistic drawings in a style that is unconventional to comics. In an attempt to understand her relationship with her dad and both of their sexualities, Bechdel sketches two photos of her dad, and one of herself (Bechdel 120). She seeks to understand her dad’s sexuality in relation to hers through the objective, unfiltered truth of their images, which she believes are both taken by their respective lovers and suggest how alike they are. Thus, photography allows her to access material truths which only allow her to better understand and connect to her subjective experiences and reality. She further strives to reflect her father’s true sexuality not in a subjective artwork, but in an objective photograph that stands as true as a subjective interpretation would. Her father stands posing in “a women’s bathing suit. […] Lissome [and] elegant” (120). This photograph of her father depicts his gendered identity effectively and authentically; is this image not depicting the truth? Baudelaire writes that “[t]he ‘positive’ […] wan[t] to represent things as they are[.] [T]he imaginative […] want to illuminate things with [their] mind[s] and cast its reflection on other minds [,] [and] […] these methods […] enhance or diminish any subject” (307). Therefore, does this image not invite viewers to imagine her dad’s truth behind the sex of his body? Is this not the “reflection” (307) that Bechdel wants to cast “on other minds” (307)? Is this not then an “enhanc[ing]” (307) expression subjugated to multiple subjective truths rather than a static replication? This suggests that although Bechdel, in contrast to Baudelaire, initially wishes to express truth in complete objectivity, subjectivity unavoidably seeps into the objective to make sense of the entire truth, as truth derives from a combination of both.
Bechdel also attempts to depict her experiences authentically through subjectivity and the cartoonish drawings of her comic, as Baudelaire suggests an artist should, yet for her and Baudelaire, subjective expression must be based upon the objective reality of experiences. Perhaps most evident in this regard, is her grayscale colour-scheme which seems to be tinted a blue-green. This colour reflects that of a washed-out photograph, hinting at the artwork (the graphic novel) itself being a fading recollection of the past. Through a subjective approach, Bechdel does not “copy the dictionary” (Baudelaire 304) of nature through the realistic colours surrounding her home and life, but “translate[s]” (304) her version of this experience in colour, for “[j]ust as a dream is bathed in its own appropriate atmosphere, so a conception, become composition, needs to have its being in a setting of colour peculiar to itself” (Baudelaire 304). In subjectively rendering the objective truths of her childhood and life, the lack of a vivid colour scheme may also symbolize her “abandon[ing] [of] colour” (Bechdel 130) after her dad’s oppressive control over not only her expression, but her life. Similar to how her “blue side […] [would] be[come] [the] shadow” (Bechdel 131) to her father’s colouring, so would her experience of life begin seeming like a mere shadow of her father’s as she explains throughout the comic. Bechdel’s expression becomes more authentic, because it filters through her experience rather than the objective reality which humans may not understand entirely in order to depict. Furthermore, her cartoon-like drawings are a “result of a sentiment” (Baudelaire 305) and memories from her childhood “which […] ha[ve] […] a degree of sureness that defeats description” (Baudelaire 305). Her early memories are often mentioned in her autobiography, and instead of depicting them all in a photo-realistic manner, Bechdel decides to use a cartoon style. This may reflect the notion that “the true artist […] [or] poet, should paint only in accordance with what [she] sees and feels. [She] must be really faithful to [her] own nature” (Baudelaire 298-299). Quite possibly, this art style could reflect Bechdel’s perception of the world as a child, and she may want to authentically capture this feeling through her artwork. In this sense, Bechdel believes there is authenticity in subjectivity like Baudelaire, and works to incorporate it into her comic; however, what makes her autobiography true is her combination of subjectivity and objectivity, her drawings and her photo-realistic sketches, which together most truthfully express her life experiences.
Bechdel’s story, like most stories, is best expressed in its reality through the coalescence of the objective and subjective. Most conspicuous perhaps, is the combination of both cartoonlike drawings and photo-realistic sketches spanning her graphic novel. In attempting to make sense of the location of her father’s death, Bechdel sketches a highly intricate map that points to her town, likely referencing an existing one (Bechdel 126). In a later drawing of the map, she loosely redraws a closer view of her hometown, highlighting the location of her father’s birth, house, burial, and death (Bechdel 140). This redrawing, which more closely matches the cartoonish style of her comic, represents her subjective understanding of her father’s death as something that came into full circle through his self-absorption. She uses the objectively truthful map to highlight her subjective interpretation of locations within the map, to create a narrative that expresses her life experience in an encompassing authenticity. Baudelaire writes that “the realists fondly think they are representing nature, and the imaginatives try and paint their own souls” (Baudelaire 307), yet Bechdel does both as she represents objective nature through her realistic map, but “paints” (Baudelaire 307) her soul through the second map which is produced by her desperation to understand the sorrowful death of her father. The objective and subjective thus work side by side, to gain insight into the bigger picture. Furthermore, interestingly enough, Bechdel does not simply paste photos into her comic, but draws them, adding another layer of subjectivity to the objective, as drawings can never be as accurate as the original. This suggests that the truth remains intertwined between the objective and the subjective. Is Bechdel then inserting her subjective experiences through these photo-realistic sketches? Bechdel sketches a fairly detailed image of her father standing before the doorsteps of her house (Bechdel 2). In her rendering of her father’s pose, Bechdel draws a facial expression unique to the rest of her drawings of him, whether cartoon-like or photo-realistic. His eyes seem to possess a sorrowful expression, but have the ability to be interpreted in many ways, depicting the multiple truths found in a subjective lens, in much the same way that “[i]magination[,] [which] is the queen of truth [,] […] is positively related to the infinite” (Baudelaire 300). Imagination and subjectivity allow for the expression of a truth that is multiple in possibility. This objective, photographic image, becomes something that adds more dimension to her father’s personality, as it better grasps his entirety, yet it can only do so due to her subjective artistic touches on it. This offers a contradicting viewpoint to the sense that if photorealism is “once allowed to impinge on the sphere of the intangible and the imaginary, on anything that has value solely because man adds something to it from his soul, then” (Baudelaire 297) it loses its authenticity. Bechdel’s memory of her father only “has value solely because [she] adds something to it from h[er] soul” (Baudelaire 297), and the photorealistic sketch of her father, carefully placed in her graphic novel, subtly “imagin[es]” (Baudelaire 297) the emotional realities of his mind through her subjective art strokes, thus connecting objectivity and subjectivity into a conclusive authenticity.
Like almost any experience in our world, life is objective and subjective. There are material facts, and then there are personal opinions. Hence, in expressing an experience to its absolute authenticity, both perceptions are required. In attempting to retell a story through a strict objective lens, subjectivity inevitably seeps in, and in attempting to tell it in a solely subjective manner, its impossibility is realized through the continuous referencing of the objective. Only in manipulating both objectivity and subjectivity, photorealism and cartoonish drawings, does Bechdel stray from her obsession with the objective truth and Baudelaire’s designation of truth solely in subjectivity, to offer a comprehensive authenticity of her life through her autobiography, Fun Home.
Works Cited
Baudelaire, Charles. “The Salon of 1859.” Selecting Writings on Art and Artists, Cambridge University Press, 1972, pp. 291–307.
Bechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. Boston New York Mariner Books, 2007.