Alison Bechdel's graphic novel Fun Home opens with a series of panels describing how she and her father played airplane. At the same time, Bechdel connects the airplane game with the myth of Icarus and Daedalus. It's important to note that what Alison and her father are doing in this scene is role-playing. One of them must be the support while the other flies. It's a role-playing game, but still a game, and they both appear very serious while playing it. Alison gets to fly, just like Icarus, while playing this game, but this isn't necessarily true in their daily lives outside of the airplane game. Bechdel says that “in [their] particular re-enactment of this mythical relationship, it was not [her], but [her] father who fell from the sky” (Bechdel p. 4). This brings into question which of them is the father in their relationship. The confusing parallels between Alison, her father, Icarus, and Daedalus highlight the unclear power relationship between Alison and her father. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe conflicts between them were almost always caused by her father trying to solve his personal problems through her. He wants her to dress very feminine because that's something he's never been able to do. He fails to recognize that his daughter is also going through her own things. Instead of playing the role of father, he is putting all the pressure on Alison to be his and her father at the same time. The father manages to constantly fly as Icarus supported by Alison as Daedalus and Alison can't keep up with him. Whenever Alison wants to open up to her father, the conversation turns to her father's issues. During the scene in the car (p. 220), after Alison tries to find out if her father knew she was gay all this time, her father focuses only on himself and dismisses Alison's questions. The book she thought he was trying to give her as a guide to self-discovery was actually a way of introducing herself. Because in the end everything revolved around him. This is the moment when Bechdel asks which of them was the father because she is the one doing all the listening to the parents (p. 221). Bechdel ends the novel with a pool scene playing with her father (p. 230-32). During the scene he explains his reasoning regarding fatherhood and his relationship with his father. It wasn't as simple as being his father's father. Their relationship was complicated and both, especially the father, benefited from each other to discover their own identity. Bechdel attempts to reveal to the reader the nature of their relationship by juxtaposing the pool scene with both Odysseus and the legend of Icarus. He feels as if his father sacrificed much that did not belong to him for his sake, just as Joyce sacrificed Beach's financial stability for Ulysses (p. 230-1). At the same time, her father was Icarus and flew too close to the sun, but “he was always there to catch [Alison] when [she] jumped” (p. 232). The novel ends with them playing together in the pool, as expressionless as when they played airplane. This unclear relationship is further distorted by Bechdel's act of writing a story about her father, in which she has ultimate control over how she shapes his character. Taking Lacan's Mirror Stage into account, Alison's father establishes that her ego is fundamentally dependent on external objects or others. Through books, he creates an “ideal” self of who he thinks he is or should be. Since the idea in his head doesn't match his experiences, he needs Alison to fill that inconsistency. She dressed Alison very femininely when she was little because that's what she wanted.