(Alienation from) Home: ‘A Bird is not a Stone’ and ‘Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic’

A Bird is Not a Stone, a collection of translated contemporary Palestinian poetry, deals with a central issue faced by Palestinians: alienation from home. The 1948 Nakba and 1967 Arab-Israeli War resulted in mass expulsion of Palestinians from their homes (1); now nearly 50% of their total number live outside of Palestine (2), with no right of return. However, this exodus has seen Palestinian communities appear around the world, presenting the idea that home is not a place, but a people. In this essay, I will examine what it means to be ‘at home’ or alienated from home, for the Palestinian diaspora.

The title reflects the importance of stones in the Palestinian question. Darwish, Palestine’s best known twenty-first century poet, believed that, for Zionist archaeologists, Palestine’s stones are ‘a means to construct a link between contemporary Jews and an ancient tribal territory, in order to rebuild Jewish identity as Israeli identity,’ while for Palestinians, they are ‘the very substance of… life, the roof and walls which form an unspoken, existential bond between people and place’ (3). Darwish’s view is supported by Abdel Rahim al-Sheikh’s poem ‘Single Address for the Post’, which conveys loss and yearning for home after the Nakba. AlSheikh repeatedly calls Palestine ‘paradise’ as, like Adam and Eve, his ‘paradise’ is lost. Palestine takes on a mythical beauty that the speaker is cast out of by the satanic figure of Israel: ‘the Great Thorn’ in the Palestinian bush of ‘roses’(4) .‘Thorn’ suggests the destructive nature of the Israeli conquest but is also an allusion to Darwish’s poem ‘A Lover from Palestine’, which describes his nation as ‘a thorn in [his] heart inflicting pain, yet [he cherishes] that thorn’ (5) . This indicates the anguish felt by al-Sheikh due to his alienation from home, and his desire to stay connected to Palestine through this pain. Al-Sheikh highlights the isolation and hopelessness felt by Palestinian exiles through the biblical reference to the desert (‘the edge of paradise’(6) ) that they have been cast out into. ‘The desert, with its vast and timeless quality, is a potent symbol of al-ghurbah’ (7) (‘the experience of being a stranger separated from one's familiar home.’ (8)). Inspired by the real deserts surrounding Palestine, it is a symbol of the ‘want, insecurity’ and ‘emptiness’ caused by alienation from home (9). The desert is a ‘black and endless night’10, emphasising how depressed and ‘alone’ (11) the speaker feels when kept from his homeland. His life is colourless; without substance; his suffering eternal. The extended metaphor of the ‘post’ and addresses (12) conveys a stability denied to the diaspora due to their lack of a national home. Al-Sheikh writes that ‘It’s hard for the post to make it to paradise’ as ‘There is no address neither here nor there’ (13) showing how their home is no longer a ‘paradise’ due to the Israeli occupation, and how this cannot be replicated. ‘The deserts of the Arab world, while providing nearly limitless space, cannot provide’ a new address: ‘a home’ (14). Additionally, many exiles ‘left with neither luggage nor papers’, suggesting a loss of the part of their identity bound to their heritage; a part that cannot regained as there is no ‘address’ to send their ‘luggage’ (their connection to their life in Palestine) to. Their Palestinian identity is lost in the instability of life as an exile, alienated from home.

However, as the title indicates, a bird is not a stone. The bird represents what Said describes as ‘the Palestinian idea’ that has ‘united’ his people, despite their lack of geographical unity(15). The image denotes hope and freedom, binding Palestinians together in their pursuit of justice. It also may be an allusion to the Palestinian sunbird, the state’s official bird whose name Israeli campaigners fought to change (16), making it a symbol of the fight to retain Palestinian identity. The title argues against Darwish, that Palestine is an idea soaring in the hearts of its people, rather than lingering in the stones in which they once lived. We see this in ‘Single Address for the Post’ when al-Sheikh describes the Palestinians being ‘seed[ed]’ from their nation before growing as ‘roses’ on the ‘edge of paradise’ (17). The semantic field of growth connotes al-Sheikh’s faith that the ‘rose’ of the Palestinian spirit will flourish again in communities around the world. Similarly, he uses the first person singular ‘I’ at the start to reflect the speaker’s isolation, before switching to ‘we’ when talking about the exiles’ pursuit of ‘Mecca’, indicating his belief in the power of faith to bring his people together. This idea is illustrated further in Zuhair Abu Shaib’s ‘Name of the Soil’; she questions herself and her community, asking: ‘what is the name of the soil?... Is it my country or the source of my exile? Is it my miracle or my cross?’ (18) With these rhetorical questions she contemplates the importance of the land in which Palestine is situated. Using ‘soil’ rather than land, removes the sense of grandeur that land takes on in the Palestinian question; land is no longer ‘the very substance of… life’ (19) and it certainly is not her ‘country’, it is dirt. Additionally, she emphasises the insignificance of the soil by never naming it, never answering the central question. She argues that her people should not martyr themselves like Christ on the ‘cross’ in a futile attempt ‘to capture the earth’ (20) because only those who believe that Palestine is a patch of dirt can truly call themselves exiles; those who recognise that the ‘soul’ cannot be ‘imprisoned… in rock’, that a Bird is Not a Stone, recognise that being ‘at home’ means being part of the Palestinian community.

In conclusion, Adonis writes that ‘Arabic poetry is… pluralistic, sometimes to the point of self-contradiction’ (21), and this encapsulates the nature of the anthology. While, like the work of earlier Palestinian writers such as Darwish and Said, the colossal sense of alienation from home is palpable, contemporary poets seem increasingly prepared to export the Palestinian idea to ensure it lives on; a sad reflection of how increasingly implausible the idea of an independent Palestinian state is becoming. The poets seem to have accepted that being ‘at home’ in the global Palestinian community is better than having no home at home.

Fun Home, Alison Bechdel’s graphic memoir, focuses on how supressed sexuality leads to feelings of alienation from home. Referencing the family funeral home, the title ironically hints at the uncomfortable atmosphere of her childhood home due to both her and her father being closeted homosexuals. Bechdel examines how and why these feelings of alienation are experienced.

Her father feels alienated from the family home because it is built on a lie; he is not ‘an ideal husband and father,’ he has ‘sex with teenage boys’ (22). Bechdel implies that, for him, being alienated from home means self-loathing and deception. He hates and cannot accept his alienation, instead maintaining the lie in every aspect of his life. His self-deception is most evident in the family home itself; his house is covered in ‘useless ornament’, ‘embellishments’ (23) used to cover up the reality of the house as ‘a shell of its former self’ (24), just as he covers up his sexuality. Bechdel employs the myth of ‘Daedalus’ (25), comparing her father to him, their house to the labyrinth, conveying the elaborate intricacy of his self-deception which rivals that of the labyrinth. She writes that the house was his ‘passion in every sense of the word’ (26) with an illustration of her father carrying a wooden pillar in a way reminiscent of Christ carrying his cross, captioned: ‘libidinal, manic, martyred’ (27). The imagery used in conjunction with the semantic field of sacrifice (‘martyred’ ‘passion’) suggest that her father’s eventual suicide, a final act of physical alienation from his home, was a result of his self-loathing, an ‘internalization of society’s’ sin of ‘homophobia’ (28), which seems as burdensome as those carried by Christ. Her father’s immense frustration caused by his alienation from home and family manifests in anger towards them. The labyrinth motif continues as Bechdel likens her father’s rage to the ‘minotaur’ (29) hidden within the self-deceptive labyrinth of his identity. This is accompanied by a threatening illustration of her father’s shadow looming over her, helping to emphasise his tyrannical cruelty. Sadly, this cruelty only alienates him further as his family perceive him as a ‘malevolent’ rather than paternal ‘presence’ (30).

Additionally, her father’s supressed sexuality leads to Alison feeling alienated from her home, resulting in discomfort and confusion as she feels alienated from the familiarity and consistency that a home should provide. The labyrinth metaphor creates an intrinsic sense of confusion that she cannot escape. This confusion is heightened by her ‘multi-layered’ format, which creates ‘her own sort of labyrinth’ as she places ‘cells of varying size and shape on the same page,’ disorientating the reader and forcing them to ‘decide in which order to read’ (31) - much like how Alison is disorientated by living as an ‘embellishment’ (32) to her father’s lie. Alison’s OCD and the doubtful tone of her diary entries express an alienation from the comfort and certainty that a home should offer. Her OCD makes doorways ‘thresholds’ she has to ‘tabulate the number of edges of’ and creates an ‘invisible substance’ in them that she must dispel with ‘special incantations’(33). Bechdel’s use of this fantastical language makes everything in her home seem strange and alien, conveying her lack of familiarity. Even her style is obsessive and compulsive; she painstakingly re-documents the already documented thoughts of her diary, re-sketches sketches or photographs from her life, constantly stresses the similarities between her life and literature and this ‘meta-obsessive’ (34) style shows how the pain of her youthful alienation from home still lingers35 . Likewise, Alison begins to use a symbol representing ‘I think’ (36) in her diary entries, destroying any sense of certainty and making her life seem just as cryptic and puzzling as her father’s identity. She uses the symbol in her diary to acknowledge the ‘attendant chaos’ (37) of her home life, while maintaining her compulsive habits as an attempt to control it, showing the damaging affect of her alienation from the consistency of a normal home.

A form of alienation that affects them both is alienation from their own bodies, which they do not feel ‘at home’ within. They experience gender dysphoria: their ‘gender expression is at odds with’ their ‘sex’ (38). While her father expresses his femininity through his daughter, forcing her to wear ‘beautiful’ effeminate ‘pearls’ (39), and his garden, ‘an efflorescence of bulbs, buds and blooms’ (40), Alison expresses hers through a dissociation from femininity. She remarks that she ‘hates pink and… flowers’ (41) as a child, and as a teenager attempts to deny her growth into a woman, referring to menstruating as ‘ning’ (42) (something we see written in her illustration of her diary, adding a further sense of dissociation due to the narrative distance), with the ‘n’ denoting a mathematical unknown, showing how unfamiliar her female body is to her. Their ‘flesh’ is not a home but a ‘burden’ (43). The noun ‘burden’ implies that their gender dysphoria makes life painfully laborious, much like the weight of her father’s secret. Furthermore, both relish the feeling of dressing in clothes typically associated with the opposite sex. Her father admits that when he ‘was little’ he ‘really wanted to be a girl’ and would ‘dress up in girls’ clothes’ as she recalls how she did the inverse (44). Bechdel’s illustrations of their body language depict her as excited, with open arms as if to welcome her father home into the gay community, and him with his hand on his face reflecting his shame at this admission. This difference between the two is that Alison’s progressive attitude to sexuality developed at her college gay union allows her to continue to fight against her alienation from her body, recreating the ‘mystical pleasure’ (45) of dressing in men’s clothes daily as an adult, but her father’s homophobia makes the shame of this admission too great, and rather than indulge his physical desires, he chooses to abandon his body, permanently alienating himself from home. In conclusion, it has been said that ‘the graphic novel’, a form ostracised from the literary cannon (46) ‘is… a place of longing, loss, sexual frustration, loneliness and alienation’ (47) and in many ways Fun Home is just that; a book about the Bechdels’ alienation from home and their sex. Yet, in a sense, the graphic novel ends Alison’s alienation from home. Fun Home represents a total acceptance of both her and her father’s sexuality and the acceptance that this self-reflective memoir affords her dispels much of her childhood uncertainty, allowing her to finally feel at home in her body and her life.

Footnotes

1 Labadi, T. (2018, 12 5). The Palestinian Diaspora and the State-Building Process. Retrieved from Arab Reform Initiative: https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/the-palestinian-diaspora-and-the-state-building-process/ (‘When the state of Israel was established in 1948, about 800,000 Palestinians, almost 60% of the total Palestinian Arab population at that time, were forced into exile… In 1967, Israel’s conquest of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip led to a second major exodus of approximately 400,000 people.’)

2 (Labadi, 2018) (‘Among them, 5.59 million live in Arab countries (44.0% of total) and about 700,000 (5.5%) live throughout the world.’)

3 Parmenter, B. M. (1994). The Meaning of Stones. In Giving Voice to Stones : Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature (pp. 1-7). Austin: University of Texas Press. Retrieved 02 17, 2020, from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1479141&site=ehostlive. pp.1-2

4 al-Sheikh, A. R. (2014). Single address for the Post. In H. Bell, & S. Irving (Eds.), A Bird is Not a Stone (L. Pyott, & R. McCrum, Trans., pp. 41-44). Glasgow: Freight Books.

5 Darwish, M. (n.d.). A Lover From Palestine. Retrieved from Palestine Advocacy Project: https://www.palestineadvocacyproject.org/poetry-campaign/a-lover-from-palestine/

6 (al-Sheikh, 2014)

7 Parmenter, B. M. (1994). Landscapes of Exile. In Giving Voice to Stones : Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature (pp. 48-69). Austin: University of Texas Press. Retrieved 02 17, 2020, from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1479141&site=ehostlive. p. 51

8 (Parmenter, Landscapes of Exile, 1994) p. 48

9 (Parmenter, Landscapes of Exile, 1994) p. 52 (‘Although these desert images derive in part from the arid lands in which many Palestinian exiles found themselves, they represent not so much a real desert as a symbol of want, insecurity, emptiness, and death.’)

10 (al-Sheikh, 2014)

11 (al-Sheikh, 2014)

12 (al-Sheikh, 2014)

13 (al-Sheikh, 2014)

14 (Parmenter, Landscapes of Exile, 1994) p.67

15 Said, E. W. (1980). Introduction. In The Question of Palestine (pp. i-xix). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. p. x

16 Nazzal, N. (2013, 06 30). Bird keeps Palestine name despite campaign. Retrieved from Gulf News: https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/bird-keeps-palestine-name-despite-campaign-1.1203823# (‘The Palestine Wildlife Society… has urged the Palestinian President and Prime Minister to… officially announce the Palestine Sunbird as the national bird of the state of Palestine after the failure of a major Israeli international campaign to change the name of the bird.’)

17 (al-Sheikh, 2014)

18 Abu Shaib, Z. (2014). Name of the Soil. In H. Bell, & S. Irving (Eds.), A Bird is Not a Stone (T. Pow, Trans., pp. 21-22). Glasgow: Freight Books.

19 (Parmenter, The Meaning of Stones, 1994) p.1

20 (Abu Shaib, 2014)

21 Adonis. (2003). Preface. In An Introduction to Arab Poetics (pp. 9-11). London: Saqi Books. p.10

22 Bechdel, A. (2006). Fun Home. London: Random House Limited. p.17

23 (Bechdel, 2006) p.16

24 (Bechdel, 2006) p.8

25 (Bechdel, 2006) p.6

26 (Bechdel, 2006) p.7

27 (Bechdel, 2006) p. 7

28 Jaffe, C., Clance, P. R., Nichols, M. F., & Emshoff, J. G. (2000). The Prevalence of Alcoholism and Feelings of Alienation in Lesbian and Heterosexual Women. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 25-35. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J236v03n03_03?casa_token=wzDU9y78wt4AAAAA:LfWOGtfb aRhTc7Z7Y_5G9X80md16guxh_QbhTnu_hc765CuGmAY1-Jv2JanRo9e4phptS5ePD9QWFQ p.32

29 (Bechdel, 2006) p.12

30 (Bechdel, 2006) p. 197

31 Allison, M. C. (2014). (Not) Lost in the Margins: Gender and Identity in Graphic Texts. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 47(4), 73-93. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030722?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=alienation&searchText= in&searchText=fun&searchText=home&searchText=by&searchText=alison&searchText=bechdel&searchUri= %2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dalienation%2Bin%2Bfun p. 76

32 (Bechdel, 2006) p.16

33 (Bechdel, 2006) p.135-136

34 Carrington, A. (2019). Reading in Juxtaposition: Comics. In T. Bradway, & E. L. McCallum (Eds.), After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory and Sexuality in the 21st Century (pp. 154-170). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://www-cambridge-org.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/core/books/after-queerstudies/9CFD275200E8F6E37EC27EDFBC838D6A p. 162

35 (Carrington, 2019) p.161-162

36 (Bechdel, 2006) p. 142

37 (Bechdel, 2006) p.149

38 (Bechdel, 2006) p.97

39 (Bechdel, 2006) p. 90

40 (Bechdel, 2006) p.90

41 (Bechdel, 2006) p.7

42 (Bechdel, 2006) p.169

43 (Bechdel, 2006) p. 170

44 (Bechdel, 2006) p.221

45 (Bechdel, 2006) p.182

46 (Allison, 2014) p. 73

47 McGrath, C. (2004, 07 14). Not Funnies. Retrieved from New York Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/magazine/not-funnies.html

Bibliography

Abu Shaib, Z. (2014). Name of the Soil. In H. Bell, & S. Irving (Eds.), A Bird is Not a Stone (T. Pow, Trans., pp. 21-22). Glasgow: Freight Books.

Adonis. (2003). Preface. In An Introduction to Arab Poetics (pp. 9-11). London: Saqi Books.

Allison, M. C. (2014). (Not) Lost in the Margins: Gender and Identity in Graphic Texts. Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, 47(4), 73-93. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/44030722?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=aliena tion&searchText=in&searchText=fun&searchText=home&searchText=by&searchText=aliso n&searchText=bechdel&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dalienation %2Bin%2Bfun

al-Sheikh, A. R. (2014). Single address for the Post. In H. Bell, & S. Irving (Eds.), A Bird is Not a Stone (L. Pyott, & R. McCrum, Trans., pp. 41-44). Glasgow: Freight Books.

Bechdel, A. (2006). Fun Home. London: Random House Limited.

Carrington, A. (2019). Reading in Juxtaposition: Comics. In T. Bradway, & E. L. McCallum (Eds.), After Queer Studies: Literature, Theory and Sexuality in the 21st Century (pp. 154-170). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://www-cambridgeorg.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/core/books/after-queerstudies/9CFD275200E8F6E37EC27EDFBC838D6A

Darwish, M. (n.d.). A Lover From Palestine. Retrieved from Palestine Advocacy Project: https://www.palestineadvocacyproject.org/poetry-campaign/a-lover-from-palestine/

Jaffe, C., Clance, P. R., Nichols, M. F., & Emshoff, J. G. (2000). The Prevalence of Alcoholism and Feelings of Alienation in Lesbian and Heterosexual Women. Journal of Gay & Lesbian Psychotherapy, 25-35. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J236v03n03_03?casa_token=wzDU9y78wt4A AAAA:LfWOGtfbaRhTc7Z7Y_5G9X80md16guxh_QbhTnu_hc765CuGmAY1- Jv2JanRo9e4phptS5ePD9QWFQ

Kuhlman, M. (2017). The Autobiographical and Biographical Graphic Novel. In S. E. Tabachnick (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Graphic Novel (pp. 113-129). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://www-cambridgeorg.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-the-graphicnovel/0F32A473829ECF2D92DCEEB6FCCCD3A9

Labadi, T. (2018, 12 5). The Palestinian Diaspora and the State-Building Process. Retrieved from Arab Reform Initiative: https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/the-palestinian-diasporaand-the-state-building-process/

McGrath, C. (2004, 07 14). Not Funnies. Retrieved from New York Times Magazine: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/11/magazine/not-funnies.html

Nazzal, N. (2013, 06 30). Bird keeps Palestine name despite campaign. Retrieved from Gulf News: https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/bird-keeps-palestine-name-despite-campaign-1.1203823#

Parmenter, B. M. (1994). Landscapes of Exile. In Giving Voice to Stones : Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature (pp. 48-69). Austin: University of Texas Press. Retrieved 02 17, 2020, from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=147 9141&site=ehost-live.

Parmenter, B. M. (1994). The Meaning of Stones. In Giving Voice to Stones : Place and Identity in Palestinian Literature (pp. 1-7). Austin: University of Texas Press. Retrieved 02 17, 2020, from http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.lancs.ac.uk/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=147 9141&site=ehost-live.

Said, E. W. (1980). Introduction. In The Question of Palestine (pp. i-xix). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Said, E. W. (1980). Towards Palestinian Self-Determination. In The Question of Palestine (pp. 115- 141). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Wodarski, J. S., & Sullivan, M. (2002). Social Alienation in Gay Youth. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 1-17. Retrieved from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J137v05n01_01?casa_token=gDoZHbj4ZGYA AAAA:GApB7Azo2ohAim93zFLdo0Rl-7SHGmr0D9PrPb6rkn07rPU6fjCZhH- Savage 10 fsPlO94lZacY5DzxoEpbkKA#aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cudGFuZGZvbmxpbmUuY29tL2RvaS9w ZGYvMTAuMTMwMC9KMTM3djA1bjAxXzAxP25lZWRBY2Nlc3