In Fun Home, author Alison Bechdel depicts her life in the style of a graphic novel, strategically using words as closure for her panels. She frames the memoir around her father’s death, and as she learns more about him, she is able to come to terms with his character and his influences on her. Alison is not able to truly discover herself until she goes to college, where with the help of her father and the freedom of her college campus, she is able to explore and understand her sexual orientation. Bechdel alludes to The Odyssey to draw both parallels and distinctions between Odysseus’s journey back to Ithaca and her own journey as a lesbian, revealing how her escape from her past requires one of the most important people from her childhood. Alison and Odysseus get help from figures in their lives, but while Odysseus’s journey takes him back home, Alison’s brings her into a whole new world.
Alison and Odysseus are both helped by key figures as they proceed in their epic journeys and reach their ultimate destination, showing how Alison cannot move forward with her present conflict until she reconnects with her past. Alison starts this journey when she first realizes that she is a lesbian, which happens to be on the same afternoon that she is forced to take an English class on her father’s favorite book, Ulysses. It is ironic that even though Alison tries her best to get far away from her father, she embarks on an odyssey that has a “gradual, episodic, and inevitable convergence” (203) with her father, Bruce. Despite being limited by his more conservative childhood, Bruce helps her by sharing useful resources as well as his own experiences with sexual orientation. She explains this by alluding to the “elaborate backstory of The Odyssey, the Trojan War,” which is “often blamed on Helen of Troy. But she couldn’t have run off with Paris if he’d never shown up. Paris plays a similar inciting role in [her] odyssey too” (204-205). In the original story about the Trojan War, Helen is abducted by Paris of Troy, but Alison tells a different version, stating that the Trojan War is often blamed on Helen of Troy despite Paris being the one who takes her with him. The “Paris'' that takes Alison along on her odyssey is from a book that her father gives her: Earthly Paradise: An Autobiography, written about a girl named Colette in Paris. The book has lesbian references and peaks her interest in gay literature as she later reads Kate Millett, a more radical feminist. She applies what she learns from Millett to her own life by increasing her involvement with Gay Student Union and her familiarity with gay literature. Thus, when Alison mentions that Paris plays a role in her odyssey, it is her way of saying that she could not move forward without her father showing her that book, in the way that Helen of Troy could not run off with Paris if he did not show up to take her with him. On a separate note, Alison’s allusion to The Odyssey brings up the potential parallels between herself and Odysseus. Odysseus is helped by three gods on his journey back to Ithaca: Circe, Hermes, and Athena. Just as the three gods navigate Odysseus back home, Bruce shares vital information with Alison to help her feel at home in her own body.
While Odysseus’s curiosity lands him in dangerous situations that he wishes to escape, Alison’s desire to learn more about herself puts her in uncomfortable circumstances that only bring her closer to her metaphorical final destination. An integral part of Odysseus’s journey back to Ithaca is when he descends into the Underworld. He is forced to do so because Teiresias is the only one who can tell him how to get home. Alison calls her entrance into Gay Student Union her “descent into the underworld” (209), artistically drawing the door in a daunting manner. Her descent proves to be fruitful as the Gay Student Union room is a more “benign and well-lit underworld” (209). The distinction between Odysseus’s descent and that of Alison is that Alison does not have to go into Gay Student Union and instead does so to satisfy her curiosity in understanding herself. Furthermore, Odysseus sails to Hades because it will help him get closer to home while Alison goes into Gay Student Union to try and get further away from home. She does not mind putting herself in uncomfortable situations because they lead to her growth as a person. Another part of Odysseus’s journey is when his curiosity on the island of Cyclops leads to him being trapped in Polyphemus’s cave. Alike to how Odysseus finds himself with Polyphemus, Alison finds herself facing a “being of Colossal strength and ferocity, to whom the law of man and God meant nothing” (214). Alison parallels her girlfriend Joan with Polyphemus from the island of Cyclops, but “while Odysseus scheme[s] desperately to escape Polyphemus’s cave, [Alison finds] that [she is] quite content to stay there forever” (214). Joan helps Alison accept herself in a way that her father was never able to accept himself, ending the chapter of uncertainty and shame in Alison’s life.
Through an allusion to The Odyssey in her memoir Fun Home, Alison Bechdel parallels her journey as a lesbian with Odysseus’s journey back to Ithaca. While Odysseus’s goal is to get back to his family, Alison desperately tries to do the opposite. However, she is pushed by what she calls “a form of divine intervention” (202) to reconnect with her father, showing that it is hard to leave one’s problems unsolved. Alison’s father indirectly piques her curiosity and pushes her to get out of her comfort zone, but this would not have happened if Alison did not initially reach out to her father. Thus, it is not divine intervention but likely a subconscious feeling that pushes Alison to find closure in her past, ultimately leaving her “Ithaca'' and creating a world for herself.