Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama

Alison sends a draft of Fun Home to her mother, who likes some sections but finds it confusing and scandalous. The critique leaves Alison distraught. She dreams of climbing an island of ice that turns into her childhood home, and then unsuccessfully explaining the situation to Bruce and a neighbor.

Alison’s parents are open about sexual topics like the Oedipus complex and penis envy, but Helen avoids using the word “vagina”. According to feminist poet Adrienne Rich, women writers, even Woolf, often emulate the formality of admired male poets and appear in writings as objects instead of multifaceted subjects. One of Helen’s poems is a twist on “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, a ballad by English poet John Keats describing an encounter between a knight and a fairy. In Helen’s version, the poem is told from the perspective of the woman.

In his article “Hate in the Countertransference,” Winnicott writes that the mother loves her children, but may despise the thankless work of parenting. They must be honest about this hate, as Winnicott is when he takes care of an angry runaway. He places the boy outside whenever he acts out and calmly expresses his anger at him.