Sexuality In Bechdel's Fun Home

The struggle of sexuality contributes to the motivations and behaviors of all the characters in Fun Home written by Allison Bechdel. The piece is a memoir, but as Bechdel refers to it; its best referred to as a family tragicomic. The work can be categorized in many multiple ways, but the best way to define it is uncertainty. This quality is not unfamiliar to many, uncertainty is a constant in life. The eternal search for true self, and the struggle of accepting what your true self is the battle in life. People begin to accept what they have perceived to be their norm, and never seek to further themselves, they believe they are trapped. This leads to much of the frustration, anger, and indiscretions. The characters trifle with sexuality, and the acceptance, and the personal tole it take on them, and the family. The author portrays this through the use of several literary devices; character, plot, illusions. symbolism, visual images, and diction. Bechdel has many struggles with her own sexuality revealed in the memoir. Her parents, and societies expectations of what a girl should be, and what Bechdel felt in her heart did not coincide. She unfolded these feelings …show more content…
Bechdel in college takes a class based on the epic poem, The Odyssey. Bechdel refers to herself as Odysseus, and his journey to reach his home land, Ithaca, as a comparison to her realization, and how she dealt with her new found sexuality. At one point Bechdel states that her first intimate act was as if she was Odysseus battling the cyclopes. This reference allows her to illustrate the true journey to the reader, and how it was just as troubled, and bumpy to find safe shores. Odysseus eventually like Bechdel found peace at the end of their quest; contentment. Many of the other characters in Bechdel’s plot where ruled by the struggle with their sexuality for majority of their lives, and never found peace at the end of their