Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Chapters 1-3

Reading Check

1. What is Bruce’s job?

2. When did Bruce pass away?

3. Where is Alison’s hometown?

4. By what nickname do the Bechdels refer to the funeral home?

5. What gift does Helen give Joan at Bruce’s funeral?

6. What is the shape of Bruce’s grave marker?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How does the game of “airplane” that Bruce plays with Alison at the beginning of the novel establish a connection to a parent-child relationship from ancient myth?

2. What final question troubles Alison at the end of Chapter 1? Why might she answer this question in both the affirmative and the negative?

3. What leads Alison to worry that her sexual orientation had something to do with her father’s death?

4. What are some reasons that Bruce admired F. Scott Fitzgerald?

5. How did Bruce change after he and Helen got married?

6. Why did Bruce become a funeral director?

Paired Resource

“Come to the Fun Home”

• This is a song from the musical adaptation of Fun Home that refers to the Bechdel funeral home as the “fun home.