Fun Home

by

Alison Bechdel

Helen Bechdel Character Analysis

Alison’s mother, Helen reminds Alison of a character out of a Henry James book in that she is an idealistic young woman who becomes entrapped and dragged down by the negative influence of Bruce and his deceitful surface-level charms. Helen dreams of being an actress. She and Bruce meet during a college production of The Taming of the Shrew, and after college Helen moves to New York for a couple of years to pursue acting. But eventually, after a prolonged correspondence through letters, Helen decides to move to Europe while Bruce is in the army to marry him, and their return to Bruce’s hometown of Beech Creek a few years later puts an end to Helen’s dream of Broadway. While raising three kids in Beech Creek, Helen continues to act in community theater productions, throwing herself into them so thoroughly that she learns all the lines, not just her own. But there is also a sense in the book that Helen throws herself into these roles in part to escape the actual facts of her life, and it is eventually revealed that she knew of Bruce’s affairs and just never acknowledged them.

Helen Bechdel Quotes in Fun Home

The Fun Home quotes below are all either spoken by Helen Bechdel or refer to Helen Bechdel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Gender Identity and Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least, the air of authenticity we lent to his exhibit. Sort of like a still life with children.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel, John Bechdel, Christian Bechdel
Related Symbols: The Bechdel Family Home
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

I’d been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents’ tragedy… I had imagined my confession as an emancipation from my parents, but instead I was pulled back into their orbit.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 58-59
Explanation and Analysis:

I think what was so alluring to my father about Fitzgerald’s stories was their inextricability from Fitzgerald’s life. Such a suspension of the imaginary in the real was, after all, my father’s stock in trade. And living with it took a toll on the rest of us.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:

My parents met, I eventually extracted from my mother, in a performance of The Taming of the Shrew… It’s a troubling play, of course. The willful Katherine’s spirit is broken by the mercenary, domineering Petruchio… Even in those prefeminist days, my parents must have found this relationship model to be problematic. They would probably have been appalled at the suggestion that their own marriage would play out in a similar way.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 69-70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Our sun rose over Bald Eagle Mountain’s hazy blue flank. And it set behind the strip mine-pocked plateau… with similar perversity, the sparkling creek that coursed down from the plateau and through our town was crystal clear precisely because it was polluted… wading in this fishless creek and swooning at the salmon sky, I learned firsthand that most elemental of all ironies… that, as Wallace Stevens put it in my mom’s favorite poem, “Death is the mother of beauty.”

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 128-129
Explanation and Analysis:

…The most arresting thing about the tape is its evidence of both my parents at work, intent and separate… It’s childish, perhaps, to grudge them the sustenance of their creative solitude. But it was all that sustained them, and thus was all-consuming. From their example, I learned quickly to feed myself.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

In a photo taken a week before the play opened, she’s literally holding herself together. But in her publicity shot as Lady Bracknell, she’s a Victorian dominatrix to rival Wilde himself.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis:
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Fun Home PDF

Helen Bechdel Quotes in Fun Home

The Fun Home quotes below are all either spoken by Helen Bechdel or refer to Helen Bechdel. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Gender Identity and Coming of Age Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

Sometimes, when things were going well, I think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least, the air of authenticity we lent to his exhibit. Sort of like a still life with children.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel, John Bechdel, Christian Bechdel
Related Symbols: The Bechdel Family Home
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 Quotes

I’d been upstaged, demoted from protagonist in my own drama to comic relief in my parents’ tragedy… I had imagined my confession as an emancipation from my parents, but instead I was pulled back into their orbit.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 58-59
Explanation and Analysis:

I think what was so alluring to my father about Fitzgerald’s stories was their inextricability from Fitzgerald’s life. Such a suspension of the imaginary in the real was, after all, my father’s stock in trade. And living with it took a toll on the rest of us.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:

My parents met, I eventually extracted from my mother, in a performance of The Taming of the Shrew… It’s a troubling play, of course. The willful Katherine’s spirit is broken by the mercenary, domineering Petruchio… Even in those prefeminist days, my parents must have found this relationship model to be problematic. They would probably have been appalled at the suggestion that their own marriage would play out in a similar way.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 69-70
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

Our sun rose over Bald Eagle Mountain’s hazy blue flank. And it set behind the strip mine-pocked plateau… with similar perversity, the sparkling creek that coursed down from the plateau and through our town was crystal clear precisely because it was polluted… wading in this fishless creek and swooning at the salmon sky, I learned firsthand that most elemental of all ironies… that, as Wallace Stevens put it in my mom’s favorite poem, “Death is the mother of beauty.”

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 128-129
Explanation and Analysis:

…The most arresting thing about the tape is its evidence of both my parents at work, intent and separate… It’s childish, perhaps, to grudge them the sustenance of their creative solitude. But it was all that sustained them, and thus was all-consuming. From their example, I learned quickly to feed myself.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Bruce Bechdel, Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 133-134
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 6 Quotes

In a photo taken a week before the play opened, she’s literally holding herself together. But in her publicity shot as Lady Bracknell, she’s a Victorian dominatrix to rival Wilde himself.

Related Characters: Alison Bechdel (speaker), Helen Bechdel
Page Number: 164
Explanation and Analysis: