![]() ![]() ![]() Bechdel describes the labyrinth in text above an illustration of herself running through the house. When fearing the wrath of her father, Alison runs through the maze of the house as the children ran through the maze fearing the Minotaur. In doing so, Bechdel reinstates his status of Daedalus by equating the house Bruce created to the labyrinth. Bechdel occasionally depicts her father as the Minotaur within his own labyrinth of a house to add to the complexity of who Bruce was. Bruce creates the beauty of the house out of nothing, as Daedalus creates numerous marvels in the tales of Crete.īruce Bechdel’s Daedalus creates the mythic Minotaur’s labyrinth within the walls of the Bechdel home. In restoring the home, Bruce performs, “as Daedalus did, dazzling displays of artfulness” (9). Through the decoration and modification of the family home, Alison sees Bruce as some sort of genius, a man that could “spin garbage into gold,” even “a Daedalus of decor” (6). Alison’s father becomes the great inventor and creator in the eyes of Alison. The image of Bruce as Daedalus only grows stronger as Bechdel continues Fun Home. This contradictory juxtaposition of text and image begins Bechdel’s depiction of the complexity of her relationship with her father. Bechdel states, “In our particular reenactment of this mythic relationship, it was not me but my father who was to plummet from the sky,” thus equating Bruce to Icarus rather than Daedalus (4). ![]() However, Bechdel immediately challenges the visual depiction by contradicting the roles shown with the text inside the image. Alison tumbles to the ground from her position above Bruce, much like Icarus falls to the ocean in the mythical tale. Bruce, much like Daedalus creating Icarus’s wings, allows Alison to fly and gives her the only means of doing so – creating a balance between her stomach and his feet as he lifts her into the air.īechdel’s opening scene establishes her father as Daedalus, but also establishes herself Icarus, the child who falls. In this instance, Alison and Bruce mirror the myth’s roles of child flying above father. Alison flies above Bruce as Icarus flew above Daedalus. The constant and inconsistent reversal of roles in the allusion to the myth of Icarus and Daedalus is necessary in demonstrating the complexity of the relationship between Alison and Bruce Bechdel.īechdel introduces her father as Daedalus and herself as Icarus, flying above him in the three illustrations opening the graphic novel. Bruce Bechdel plays the role of Daedalus, the grand inventor, and Icarus, the one who falls, while Alison plays the same roles differently – Daedalus through the wise warning and Icarus as the child taking flight with the father.īy continuously changing who plays whom in the myth as Fun Home progresses, Bechdel creates a stronger complexity within the relationship between her and her father. But does he fall because he did not take some advice from Alison’s Daedalus? Bechdel portrays herself as Icarus flying above her father, yet allows readers to immediately know that “it was not but father who was to plummet from the sky” (4). However, he is also the one who falls as Icarus, not Alison. Her father is often Daedalus, the great inventor who can see something and turn it into something great. During flight, Icarus forgets his father’s warning and flies too close to the sun, melting his wings and plummeting to his death in the waves below.īechdel inverts the roles in the mythical allusion constantly. The inventor warns his son to be careful of the path he chooses to fly – flying too high would cause the wax to melt and the wings to fall apart, but fly too low and the waves will dampen the wings, rendering them useless. Daedalus, watching the birds flying around the tower, creates wings for him and his son to escape, using only wax and feathers. In the myth of Daedalus and Icarus, the father and son are locked in a tower with hopes of escaping. Bechdel, however, does not maintain consistency in the allusion as a parallel to her relationship with her father. On top of integrating countless allusions and references in the bulk of the graphic novel, Bechdel employs the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus to unite the overarching themes of the work with the characters and the relationships between the characters. ![]()
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