Anti-Climactic Coming of Age: A Look at Nonlinear Plot Structure

In “Lost in the Funhouse,” John Barth tells the alarmingly discombobulating coming of age story of Ambrose, a teenage boy who finds himself while lost in the labyrinth of a funhouse at a fair. The story is told out of order, as the narrator jumps around from one plot point to another. Similarly, Alison Bechdel’s poignant graphic memoir Fun Home is told nonlinearly; the narrative of her own ascent into adulthood is fragmented and reorganized in a way that does not match the true chronology of the events. The two pieces’ eerily similar titles both mention a place — the funhouse at the fair and the Bechdel family’s funeral home, respectively — that sounds fun, safe, and happy from the outside, but turns out to be messy, disorienting, and difficult once entered. These misleading expectations are reflected in the genre that the stories inhabit; throughout “Lost in the Funhouse,” Barth’s omniscient narrator explains to his reader that the plot of each coming of age story should be arranged according to the widely-accepted rules of Freytag’s Pyramid, a commonly used literary device that forms the blueprint for most basic plot structures. Barth’s narrator explicitly warns the reader that “one ought not to forsake” these ideals of chronology, “unless one wishes to forsake as well the effect of drama,” therefore undermining the effectiveness of his story (Barth 95). Thus, as most fiction aims to represent reality, Freytag’s even, straightforward pyramid fosters the assumption that life will follow a relatively unhindered path, with conflict only arising in its predetermined location. Real life is not so simple, and the refusal of Barth’s and Bechdel’s pieces to adhere to the form laid out in Freytag’s pyramid reflects this reality, recognizing the confusion, struggles, and unanswered questions that complicate life’s transitions. In doing so, their stories not only become more accurate portrayals of coming of age, but also more effective ones, offering understanding and empathy to their readers, rather than just an entertaining narrative.

The first section of Freytag’s pyramid is the exposition. Specifically, the narrator of “Lost in the Funhouse” explains that the beginning of a story should “introduce the principal characters, [and] establish their initial relationships,” as well as “plant motifs and foreshadowing where appropriate,” among other things (Barth 77). He goes on to call out his own story for not accomplishing these goals, proposing that “the beginning should recount the events between Ambrose’s first sight of the funhouse early in the afternoon and his entering it with Magda and Peter in the evening,” and admitting that what is actually discussed on the first few pages of his tale, “the details of the drive to Ocean City,” do not “seem especially relevant” (Barth 77). Although the narrator seems to be correct in calling his story’s disorganization to the reader’s attention, the beginning as it is written does achieve some of the purposes he has suggested it should. On the first page, the audience meets the protagonist, a teenager who is yet so uncommitted to adulthood that “his voice [still] came out high-pitched as a child’s if he let himself get carried away” (Barth). That Ambrose’s voice still sounds like a child’s if he “let[s]” it implies that he is trying to feign adulthood by lowering his voice, yet has not fully transitioned away from childhood. Thus, the audience has discovered the main character and his position in his journey of coming of age. The opening also serves to “establish [his] initial relationships,” with his brother Peter and crush Magda, who is “a pretty girl an exquisite young lady [sic]” (Barth 72). Further, in the second sentence, the central conflict of the story is foreshadowed, when we learn that for Ambrose, the Funhouse is “a place of fear and confusion” (Barth 72). Here, before Ambrose is anywhere near the Funhouse, the audience is warned that despite titular implications, the Funhouse may turn out to elicit these darker feelings. Thus, the audience is made privy to one of the story’s essential paradoxes, and has seen that the Funhouse may be a larger metaphor for the emotional place Ambrose is in his life. Despite the narrator’s qualms that this story may lose its effect due to its disheveled plot structure, Barth’s treatment of the beginning manages to establish much of what the audience needs to know to understand the story. Barth is asking his audience to recognize that a story that does not match up with traditional, archetypal norms can still be effective.

A similar situation is found upon examining Fun Home. The first few pages of the book do not portray the earliest event in Bechdel’s story. While the opening panels of graphics show a young Bechdel relatively near the beginning of her life, the time table jumps around so much in the opening pages, from toddler to pre-teen and back again, that it becomes difficult to firmly establish a concrete timeline. Later, in middle of the book, Bechdel divulges details of her parent’s travels in Europe before she was born and the early days of their relationship, saving this, the actual beginning of her life story, for a spotlight well after her memoir has begun. Although the opening section of Bechdel’s novel does not move linearly through time, it does accomplish some of the goals for an exposition as set out by Barth. She does “introduce the principle characters,” including thorough description of her father Bruce Bechdel, both textually — “…he was a Daedalus of decor… that skillful artificer, that mad scientist…” — and visually, showing images of him as a dark, fit, and brooding man with chiseled cheek bones and an apparent passion for denim cut-off shorts and shirtlessness (Bechdel 6-7). Through comparison of her father to Daedalus, a crafty yet misguided character who faces tragedy in Greek mythology, Bechdel equates her father’s way of life to that of a widely-known figure and, in doing so, hints at his unhappy ending. The first chapter also subtly “plants… foreshadowing” of her father's death by Sunbeam Bread truck, hiding pictures of the Sunbeam logo in otherwise unassuming panels, such as in the background of the main image on page 21. Thus, though she doesn’t follow normative plot structure in the opening of her novel, Bechdel succeeds in providing the pertinent information her audience will need to understand her story. Further, by suspending her earliest chronological memories throughout the book, rather than giving them all away at the beginning, she provides a more realistic understanding of the way childhood experiences permeate through life and continue to affect a person’s transition into adulthood.

Often, the classic coming of age narrative features a singular pivotal moment wherein an adolescent passes through some irrevocable rite of passage, allegorically marking the beginning of adulthood and drawing childhood to its conclusion. This cliched moment of clarity and change is represented on Freytag’s pyramid as the climax of the story. Traditionally, this instance is given excessive significance — with a single event, the protagonist has now supposedly left childhood behind forever, and is completely and irreversibly grown. Despite this expectation, there is no definite climax to Barth’s story. His narrator suggests that in the case of this narrative, “the climax… must be [the] protagonist’s discovery of a way to get through the Funhouse” (Barth 96). This makes sense; were Ambrose to find his way out of the dark and back into the light of the real world, he may have emerged with renewed hope and optimism at his own competence, having lost his childlike innocence somewhere inside. However, although he searches for an exit, Ambrose “has found none,” and the climax that the narrator has predetermined never actually comes to pass (Barth 96). Instead, the traditionally climactic section of the story is filled with rambling, winding descriptions of Ambrose’s existential crisis-like thoughts as he wanders through the maze of the Funhouse. He wonders doubtfully whether he will “become a regular person,” and “he wishes he were dead” (Barth 97). That his coming of age does not match what he believes to be the correct path causes Ambrose to doubt himself, leading to damaging, depressive thoughts and actions. By denying his audience the climactic turning-point of his story, Barth suggests that to do so may not only be overdone and contrived, but also harmfully unrealistic — in reality, coming of age does not happen in one single all-defining moment, but over time, in a maze of overwhelming thoughts and experiences.

Fun Home, on the other hand, presents a clear climax. However, the non-linear fashion in which it is treated serves to further complicate and deepen Bechdel’s memoir. The pivotal moment of young Alison’s life is when, shortly after coming out as a lesbian to her mother and closeted gay father, Bruce Bechdel is hit by a bread truck and killed. Bechdel suspects the accident was a suicide, and the event serves as a culmination of all the plot points that happened earlier in her life — the family’s sexually-charged camping trip and wrought family vacation to New York City, her father’s court case, Bechdel’s own issues of gender identity and sexual discovery — and firmly cements her status as an adult. However, the event is not placed in its true chronological location in Bechdel’s life story, and returns several times throughout the book in a way that linear movement through time would not allow. Bruce Bechdel’s death is first mentioned in the opening chapter of the book — “it’s true he didn’t kill himself until I was nearly twenty” — well before the rising action has gotten off the ground, before all of the aforementioned vacations and awakenings have even been suggested (Bechdel 23). The scene of the accident then continues to reappear many times throughout the book, sometimes in the text, and often merely alluded to as the panels show the instance before his death from different angles at different points on the timeline. For example, pictures of the accident as it is described on page 89, of her father carrying weeds across the street in nothing but cut-off jean shorts, and of the Sunbeam Bread truck that hit him, are seen again on page 59, when Bechdel questions whether her “father’s death following so hard on the heels of [her] doleful coming-out” is merely coincidence, or whether her acceptance of her identity lead to his death (Bechdel 59). The image is once more presented in the penultimate panel of the book, when she compares his death to that of the mythical Icarus, tying together the major themes of her book (Bechdel 59). This nonlinear treatment of the climax allows the plot point to serve as a major thematic checkpoint for the story. Bechdel’s coming of age happens not in the exact moment of her father’s death, but rather as “his absence resonate[s] retroactively, echoing back through all the time [she] knew him,” and as she reflects on it, works through it, and moves forward (Bechdel 23). By including the climactic moment of the memoir more than once throughout its telling, Bechdel is able to make use of the huge emotional and thematic impact of it to varying effects, allowing it to “resonate retroactively” through the whole story, rather than being confined to just one powerful moment. Following the precedent of an unusual treatment of the climax as set by Barth in his story, the structure of her narrative mimics her real-life coming of age — messy and unstructured and lacking one life-changing moment — and in doing so helps debunk the unrealistic expectations that accompany adolescents’ transition into adulthood.

The final section of Freytag’s pyramid consists of the “dénouement, or resolution of the conflict” (Barth 95). According to this model, both Barth’s and Bechdel’s stories should end conclusively, with all the problems solved, the characters fully self-actualized, and all the major themes of the book laid out clearly for the reader to see. This, however, is not the case, as neither story’s central conflict is fully resolved: Ambrose does not get out of the Funhouse, and Alison never discovers the true circumstances behind her father’s death. This final divergence from normative plot structure cements the nonlinearly of Barth’s and Bechdel’s stories. Through this approach, Freytag’s view of linearity, as something indicative of the most effective, normative way to tell a story, presents itself as a metaphor for the ideals of social normalcy and congruity faced by the protagonists of these stories. Barth, for example, suggests that “something has gone wrong” in Ambrose’s head for him to not be able to find his way out, and that “what Ambrose feels,” could mean that “Ambrose is a freak,” implying that he does not fit into society solely because he does not experience a linear coming of age (Barth 97, 91). To only write stories that conform to Freytag’s path could enforce harmful assumptions among adolescents that if their stories do not happen perfectly, they are bad or wrong. The plots of “Lost in the Funhouse” and Fun Home do not resolve; neither Ambrose’s nor young Bechdel’s lives follow the easy, predetermined path society has taught them to expect. By ending their stories in such a way, by letting them fray out into nothingness rather than forcing them to come together, Barth and Bechdel acknowledge that coming of age does not need to be clear or absolute for it to be socially acceptable. Through their nonlinear narratives, the authors have helped to derail the unrealistic expectations that the harmful preponderance of stories following Freytag’s pyramid could create.