Alison Bechdel's Fun Home

Alison Bechdel’s tragicomic titled Fun Home which is a memoir of her experience in adolescence and maturity into a young woman. Bechdel’s use of mythology throughout her tragicomic allows for a more enhanced metaphor of the two-sided nature that is presented through her father, herself, and their home. The use of myth addresses some modern dualities within the characters but looking at the form of religion Bechdel’s father can be depicted as a Christ figure early In the comic and this perhaps is additive to the Greek myths otherwise presented. The myth of Icarus and Daedalus is used to juxtapose the daughter-father relationship and how they compare to the myth. Alongside the myth of Icarus and Daedalus there is the expanded story of Daedalus’

creation of the labyrinth and Bechdel presents the comparison of the labyrinth with the home Bechdel grew up in through this myth.
The idea of mythology addressing modern concerns is seen early in Fun Home when Bechdel’s father is seen as a fatherly figure and depicted in brief as perhaps being a Christ figure. When looking at the lower panel on page 7 of the comic Bechdel’s father is seen carrying a beam across his back this imagery is familiar to Christ carrying the cross when depicted through biblical art. The comparison can be further seen through Bechdel’s description of her father’s passion being “in every sense of the word – Martyred” (Bechdel 7) the use of this word “martyred” is exactly what Jesus himself was in his own story. The last similarity of the two figures is their carpentry ability which Bechdel’s father exhibits through his design of the home. Overall the modern implications of this juxtaposition is that Bechdel’s father early on in the comic can be seen as a truly good man albeit one who has others suffer for his art of making his home. Bechdel herself states the way her father treated the rest of his family in comparing him to Daedalus’’ work in which “Daedalus too, was indifferent to the human costs of his project” (Bechdel 11). Just as Jesus suffered through his passions, Bechdel’s father has his family suffer through his own pursuits.
Moving from the realm of religion and into Greek mythology mentioned before, Alison Bechdel and her father, Bruce, are compared to the myth of Icarus and Daedalus.

From Monica Pearl’s Redrawing the family (romance) in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home Pearl depicts the use of paradox in the comic and how these paradoxes apply to the “identities of the family members” (Pearl 269). Although Pearl notices the paradoxes of the story she fails to touches on the myth of Icarus and Daedalus more than the surface of the instead of looking at the symbolic nature the tale has with the characters and their multiple perspectives. Bruce Bechdel is seen to be described as the Daedalus through the beginning of the book as Alison describes how he would “perform, as Daedalus did, dazzling displays of artfulness” (Bechdel 9). Having Bruce being like Daedalus juxtaposes Alison to being Icarus. With Bruce being a Daedalus figure he is in the first panel of the comic lifting Alison in the air in a game of “airplane” which could be synonymous to Daedalus lifting Icarus into the sky with the wax wings in their story. The roles of Daedalus and Icarus between the father and daughter seems to change as the sexual awareness of Alison emerges. The more Alison comes out with her gayness the more she seems to take on the role of father and leader as one such as Daedalus. Bruce becomes a figure of secret harbouring and is never freed from his cage he created through hiding his gayness while Alison breaks free

from it. In this sense Bruce becomes the Icarus in the story who dies (due to hiding his gayness and ultimately dying in part from it) while Alison becomes the Daedalus who escapes the prison island she was once on (that of her hidden sexuality). This change and role reversal is seen through simple ways as the interests the two characters express. One such example of this role reversal can be seen in Alison’s pondering of if she has the “guts to be one of those Eisenhower-era butches”(Bechdel 108) while she simultaneously expresses her father’s hiding of his gayness, “Or would I have married and sought succor from my high school students” (Bechdel 108). Overall Alison shows that her opening up and accepting her gayness allowed her to free herself from her prison while her father was unable to escape and died because of it.
One last reverse occurs in the last pages when Alison states “what if Icarus hadn’t hurtled into the sea? What if he’d inherited his father’s inventive bent? What might he have wrought” (Bechdel 231). This reverse narration implies the use of the myth as being what might have happened to Alison if she was like her father in his actions. What would have happened to her if she hid her sexuality like her father? The use of this extended metaphor through myth enhances the idea and consequences of hiding one’s sexuality/true-self.
The final use of the myth of Daedalus is the use of one of Daedalus’ achievements the labyrinth.

This great labyrinth is a masterfully built maze used to keep inside a great secret, a hidden beast. This hidden beast can be compared to the house Bruce Bechdel builds by hand. Bruce as described earlier is a Daedalus figure and his creation of the house is his labyrinth from which he hides his own secret, the other half and the gayness he conceals. In describing the house Alison explains the maze like properties the house presents and even mentions “it was impossible to tell if the Minotaur lay beyond the next corner” (Bechdel 21) after acknowledging that they understood how to get around the house. The Minotaur depicted here being their father’s more violent mood, one which seems to be shown in the safety of the house that others outside wouldn’t be subject to seeing. This metaphor of the house harbouring a private secret is how the author presents a character and their motive and theme through the use of

mythology.
In conclusion mythology and subsequently religious symbolism is used in Fun Home to showcase the modern concerns and characters in the story. The Christ figure of Bechdel’s father perhaps gives the reader a view of fatherly love and following in the way he acts. He is presented in a positive light through this imagery and is comparable to the mythical character of Daedalus whom he is depicted as. The use of the mythological characters of Daedalus and Icarus exemplify the story’s theme as a “sexual coming out” tale where Alison doesn’t follow in her father’s footsteps, reverses the character progression, and ultimately survives her trial of sexuality. Her father’s hidden sexuality keeps him from living his life to a full extent and hiding in inside his symbolic and physical labyrinth of his house, he becomes the Minos Minotaur. Overall the characters become symbolic to their mythological counterparts and because of this Bechdel creates a memoir of a tragedy and success she experienced through her life with symbolic juxtapositions.