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Throughout her graphic memoir, Bechdel creates meaning through the intricate interplay of text and image. Because Bechdel is particularly interested in what cannot be said or known, she often uses images to express what is difficult to articulate with language alone. This is particularly true in her depiction of trauma, as moments of violence, the loss of self, and abandonment often make language elusive. In the written text, for example, Bechdel doesn’t name her father’s physical violence, almost as though it is too painful to express directly. But Bechdel does depict the violence in her images, illustrating herself being spanked, her brother begging not to be hit, and her father throwing plates that leave permanent scars on the linoleum. She also never explicitly says that her obsessive tendencies as a child are linked to her father’s secret life and the tension that his affairs with boys and men caused in their home. But in the panels that accompany the text, Bechdel illustrates a fight between her parents provoked by her father coming home late, likely because of an extramarital encounter. This juxtaposition creates an implicit connection between Bechdel’s overpowering childhood anxiety and her father’s secret life. 

Bechdel’s drawings often use an over-the-shoulder point of view that invites readers to see things as Bechdel herself sees them. By using this technique, Bechdel situates readers to share her view of the events depicted in the panel. This also relieves Bechdel from the burden of being alone with her often-traumatic memories, compelling the reader to witness the experiences she lived through alone. For example, after Alison is disappointed by her parents’ responses to her coming out, Bechdel invites readers to see the gift she bought to comfort herself, a pocketknife. Alison accidentally cuts her finger with the knife, and in the next panel, there’s an image of a blood-stained page on which she had pressed her finger into her diary. The text reads that she is pleased to “transmit her anguish to the page so literally.” The reader can see Alison’s diary from her perspective, too, allowing her to similarly transmit her pain to her readers. The unique elements of the medium allow the reader direct access to the otherwise unspeakable, and they provide Bechdel a means to share her experiences in a way that can oftentimes be more intimate than a standard written memoir.

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