This demonstrates the theme of understanding one's own life through literature - a frequent habit of Bruce Bechdel's that he has passed on to his daughter. Here, Bechdel explains straightforwardly why she has been using so many literary references and comparing her parents' lives to those of authors and their characters. "I employ these allusions to James and Fitzgerald not only as descriptive devices, but because my parents are most real to me in fictional terms." -Bechdel, pg. Bechdel underlines the multiple meanings of the word "queer" by drawing it as it appears in the dictionary. Bechdel strongly suspects that Bruce committed suicide because of the ways in which his death is strangely connected to the deaths of his favorite authors and literary characters - but there is no way to be certain. It is also queer because of the ambiguous circumstances surrouding it. Her father's death is queer because he had been secretly queer - at least to her - until just before his death. This is an example of Bechdel using certain words with multiple applicable meanings. "My father's death was a queer business - queer in every sense of that multi-valent word." -Bechdel, pg.
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