Roy Character Analysis in Fun Home

One of Bruce’s English students, he also serves as a babysitter for the Bechdel children and helps out around the house. In college, Alison finds out that Bruce was having an affair with Roy, and she later discovers a photograph of Roy in his underwear that Bruce must have taken on a family vacation.

Roy Quotes in Fun Home

The Fun Home quotes below are all either spoken by Roy or refer to Roy. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

Gender Identity and Coming of Age Theme Icon

). Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the Mariner Books edition of Fun Home published in 2007.

In an act of prestidigitation typical of the way my father juggled his public appearance and private reality, the evidence is simultaneously hidden and revealed.

Related Characters: (speaker), ,

Page Number and Citation: 101

Explanation and Analysis:

Roy Character Timeline in Fun Home

The timeline below shows where the character Roy appears in Fun Home. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...from Fitzgerald’s life.” Over images of Bruce flirting with one of his high school students, Roy, and offering him sherry, Alison notes that mixing the imaginary with the real was Bruce’s... (full context)

...Alison that one time Bruce almost got caught, and he also had an affair with Roy, Alison’s childhood babysitter. This revision of Alison’s history—a history which, with her own realization about... (full context)

Over illustrations of Helen letting Roy into the house, Alison narrates that Proust would have close friendships with women, but it... (full context)

...the book, Alison narrates over what are presumably her own fingers holding a photograph of Roy, the Bechdel family’s yard-work assistant/babysitter, lying on a bed in his underwear. Alison says the... (full context)

Alison notes that the negatives revealed that the dark, murky photo of Roy in the bed was taken immediately after three bright shots of Alison, Christian, and John... (full context)

In another memory, Helen is staying in downtown Manhattan with her friend Elly. Roy takes Alison (who is eight) and her brothers for a walk while Bruce goes up... (full context)

When Alison was 10, two years after the vacation with Roy, her father started hanging out with Bill, a new young man who helped out with... (full context)

...“the complexity of loss itself.” In the same box where Alison found the photo of Roy, she also finds a photo of Bruce at about the same age. He’s wearing a... (full context)