A common theme throughout Fun Home is sexuality. Both Alison and her father Bruce are dealing with sexual tension and angst throughout the novel and deal with their own sexuality and radically different ways. Through their sexuality father and daughter share something in common, an attraction to members of the same sex, where they differ however is the way in which they embrace or repress their sexuality.
Alison discovers early on that is different from other girls. When she and brothers go on a trip she insists that they refer to her with a boy’s name. Throughout her childhood she continuously yearned to become more masculine, much to the chagrin of her father. When Alison leaves for college she finally comes to terms with the fact that she is a lesbian and begins researching her sexuality, immersing herself within the lesbian subculture and even becoming involved by attending meetings at her school. She even manages to work up the courage to ‘out’ herself to her parents via a phone call.
Alison is radically different from her father. While she embraces her homosexuality he rejects his, referring to himself as a badperson and guiltily scurrying off to faraway places where he may solicit gay sex. Bruce never came out of his closet voluntarily; it was only when his affairs became known that he began to face facts, even then though he was still ashamed of what he was.
Bechdel shows the immense burden sexuality can become to us if bottled up on the inside and never allowed to be out in the open. While her father was trying to conform to the accepted lifestyle of his time he forgot one thing, himself. It was a mistake Alison fortunately did not make for herself. More importantly though, Bechdel’s novel brings within it the message of accepting yourself as being pivotal to your success as person. To go through life rejecting oneself is merely an existence and certainly not a life.
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