The "Doppleganger" of death in Fun Home

 I distinctly remember reading some literary thing somewhere about dopplegangers and how seeing them foreshadows death. The writer mentioned Percy Shelley seeing a doppleganger before he drowned. I really want to say it was in Are You My Mother, but I could be, and probably am, totally wrong. However, traditionally a doppleganger looks exactly, freakishly like you, which is why it is so terrifying. This is clearly not the case here. 

 Anyways, this is an extremely short blog post, but Adrian's post about Alison seeing the dead boy reminded me of it. Alison repeatedly identifies with male figures and masculinity throughout the book. She tries to pass herself off as a boy to win the respect of her father's vaguely misogynistic friend, she's generally interested in masculine gender presentation, and she enjoyed using men as surrogates for herself when illustrating interests like sports, saying "In the flat chest and slim hips of my surrogates, I found release from my own increasing burden of flesh." (p170). She also eventually identifies with her father to some degree, albeit in some ways more as an inversion or reflection than a translation. 

I hypothesize that Alison's identification with masculinity heightens her identification with the boy her own age who died in the car crash (also, this is when she is ten, so one should think gender would be less of an issue before puberty in any case, although it was in, like, 1970 or something). From the fact she highlights that they are the same age, and the visceral details of the grayness of his skin against his blond hair, we can see it's clear that seeing his corpse made her feel personally threatened, like his circumstances were similar enough that they could have happened to her. 

This, as Adrian analysed, prompted Alison to try and protect herself with the "I think" symbol. Note that by this point, the symbol had become "a sort of amulet, warding off evil from my subjects." (p142), and that when describing her non-diary compulsions, Alison specifically notes they were triggered by a "dark fear of annihilation," which further suggests that Alison's drawing over her entry for that day is prompted by her own fear of death, which is heightened by the boy's similarity to her in age and gender expression, making him something of a doppleganger, albeit not in the traditional sense (p139). 

 

 

Yeah I know it's a total stretch and I should never cook again. Oh well. I tried. This is my questionable quality blog, after all.