Lena's Coming of Age Blog

Alison’s diary, particularly the evolution of her entries and the parallels it draws to her life, is–in my opinion–one of the most interesting and rich aspects of Fun Home. Alison first begins to keep a diary as a way to cope with her OCD. While her entries start out relatively mundane, she soon begins to obsessively mark her comments with the phrase “I think,” which is eventually replaced with a shorthand symbol. Even the most seemingly indisputable, objective statements are branded with her symbol of doubt, which she justifies by asking, “How did I know that the things I was writing were absolutely, objectively true?” (141). During this period of Alison’s life, she strives to keep her diary as accurate and truthful as possible, her obsessive use of “I think” representing her fear of misinterpreting reality. However, as she grows older, her diary entries begin to reflect a different form of hesitation. As she grows older, three dots begin to show up in her entries, which she claims “i...

  “‘We’ll take up where we left off, Esther,’ she had said, with her sweet, martyr’s smile. ‘We’ll act as if all this were a bad dream.’” (237). The question of whether Esther is starting somewhere new at the end of The Bell Jar or simply returning to her old life is an interesting one. Based on the quote above, Ms. Greenwood believes that Esther’s time spent in the psychiatric institutions is nothing more than a temporary interruption - a nightmare that can be erased by returning to normalcy. But what is the “normalcy” that Esther will be returning to?  The novel ends just as Esther steps into the interview with the board of directors, in hopes that they’ll clear her to return to her college. In literal terms, this is the return to normalcy her mother envisions: Esther back in school, resuming her studies, continuing along the academic path that she once succeeded on. From this interpretation, Esther's mental crisis would be viewed as a brief detour from her promising trajec...