Truth to Artifice: Alison's Diary

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 “indicate not so much omission as hesitation” (162). While her previous obsession with adding “I think” to her entries stemmed from anxiety about not telling the truth, her later use of ellipses reflects a more complex hesitation about how to articulate her statements, or even whether she should at all. Alison’s hesitation eventually evolves into full-on exclusion of certain events. One of the most notable examples of this is her menstruation. When Alison first gets her period, it goes completely unmentioned in her diary. When she finally writes about it, she uses a carefully decided-upon code word, so that “the truth is barely perceptible behind a hedge of qualifiers, encryption, and stray punctuation” (169). Alison’s diary only continues to stray from the pure truthfulness of her early entries as time goes on, as she notes, “my narration had by this point become altogether unreliable” (184).

When I first read about Alison’s diary and her use of “I think,” my inclination was to infer that her doubt concerning her recollection of events was in some way a result of the artificiality of her environment, particularly her father, Bruce. His constant emphasis on appearance, of both Alison’s family and their house, created a world in which authenticity was obscured. She even describes Bruce’s various decorations as “lies,” explaining that they served no function and were purely ornamental (16). Given this, it seems reasonable to interpret Alison’s doubt, even about the most seemingly concrete facts, as a response to her artificial environment.

However, this interpretation does not account for her later entries. As Alison matures, her diary begins to mirror the artificiality of her environment rather than a staunch objection to it. I think it’s significant that a lot of the unreliability of Alison’s entries stems from the omission of events often associated with coming-of-age, such as menstruation. Although it isn’t explicitly mentioned in relation to her diary, Alison’s sexuality is another coming-of-age theme that she struggles to be truthful about, specifically with her parents. As Alison grows older, she more frequently encounters these moments and increasingly hesitates to express the pure truth, even fully omitting certain details. In a way, I think the same environment of secrecy and performance that caused Alison to initially question the truth of her surroundings ultimately leads her to fall into some of the same patterns as she comes of age.