A Portrait of the Artist as a Young (Wo)Man

There is no escaping literature in Fun Home. Alison and her father are constantly seen book in hand, title visible. Chapter titles cleverly allude to some of the most celebrated works in the canon. Most of these references are explained within each respective chapter, but I found it curious that in Chapter 1, "Old Father, Old Artificer," Bechdel, allows the reader to believe that this is simply an invocation of the Daedalus/Icarus myth, whereas anyone who has read Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man will recognize this as the begining of that novel's very last line. Of course Joyce takes on greater importance in the the graphic novel's final chapter, "The Antihero's Journey" (which follow's Joseph Campbell's model for the journey of the hero quiye nicely), mostly in relation to Ulysses which Allison "studies" in college. A Portrait of the Artist. . . is brought up fleetingly as a text that she should read prior to Ulysses; and when Allison mentions this to her father he remarks "You damn well better identify with every page."

I bring this up because for all the heavy handed connections Bechdel between between her family history and the works of Proust, Fitzgerald, James, etc, it seems as if Fun Home taken as a whole is a far more subtle and compelling retelling of A Portrait of the Artist . . . and I appreciate that she doesn't have to spell that out for me.