Daedalus and Portrait
The Daedalus Myth: Its Role in A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST... James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of complex themes developed through frequent allusions to classical mythology. The myth of Daedalus and Icarus serves as a structuring element in the novel, uniting the central themes of individual rebellion and discovery, producing a work of literature that illuminates the motivations of an artist, and the development of his James Joyce chose the name Stephen Dedalus to link his hero with the mythical Greek hero, Daedalus. In Greek myth, Daedalus was an architect, inventor, and artisan. By request of King Minos, Daedalus built a labyrinth on Crete to contain a monster called the Minotaur, half bull and half man. Later, for displeasing the king, Daedalus and his son Icarus were both confined in this labyrinth, which was so complex that even its creator could not find his way out. Instead, Daedalus fashioned wings of wax and feathers so that he and his son could escape. When Icarus flew too high -- too near the sun -- in spite of his father's warnings, his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned. His more cautious father flew to safety (World Bo
This confused her more and I felt sorry and mean. Each chapter ends with an attempted flight, leading into a partial failure or fall at the beginning of the next chapter. The last chapter ends with the most ambitious attempt, to fly away from home, religion, and nation to a self-imposed artistic exile (Wells 252): "Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. The schools are a maze of corridors; Dublin is a maze of streets. But at times Stephen feels like Icarus, the son who, if he does not heed his father's advice, may die for his stubborn pride (Litz 71). At first, Stephen does not understand the significance of his unusual name. If he wants to be free, Daedalus must fly high above the obstacles in his path. He comes to realize, by the fourth chapter, that like Daedalus he is caught in a maze: Every part of his day, divided by what he regarded now as the duties of his station in life, circled about its own centre of spiritual energy. At the end of Portrait of the Artist, he seems to be calling on a substitute, spiritual parent for support, when he refers to Daedalus as "old father, old artificer. Turned off that valve at once and opened the spiritual-heroic refrigerating apparatus, invented and patented in all countries by Dante Alighieri. The only way out seems to be to soar above the narrow confines of the prison, as did Daedalus and his son.
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Acceptance Essays
