Daedalus and Icarus
Once one story is told several times over different groups of people, several interpretations come up. The story of Daedalus and his son Icarus has received different interpretations. However, the relationship between characters has been essential in portraying the failure of humankind due to anxiety and disobedience. Although humankind benefits from anxiety that leads to interventions, jealousy comes in to destroy the positive relations between human beings. The story of Daedalus and Icarus presents the role of jealous and disobedience in leading to the failure of humankind.
The failure of humankind comes after a series of several unethical attempts to take unfair advantage. Daedalus is a talented craftsman and is expected to allow other people to showcase their talents as well. However, Daedalus is jealous of his nephew Talus, who invents the saw and Daedalus plans for Talus’ death (Cookson, 2017). Although different interpretations give different endings for Talus, all of them recognize that the end was sad, and Daedalus was responsible. One interpretation of “The Myth of Daedalus and Icarus” shows that Daedalus and Icarus were imprisoned in a maze that had been created by Daedalus. The jealous nature of Daedalus starts building his downfall, and Icarus may be in line to suffer the punishment for his father’s deeds. The failure of Daedalus does not take long, although Icarus is at the center of the failure.
When Daedalus and Icarus are locked up by King Mino, he comes up with an idea to escape by air. Daedalus is anxious about whether his attempt will become successful but does not know that his son would die from the effort. Also, Icarus is disobedient and fails to take heed of his father’s instructions. Daedalus invents feathers to use together with his son as a way of escaping from captivity. However, Icarus does not follow the guidelines set by Daedalus and ends up falling in the sea and drowning (Rattray, 2015). The death of Icarus is portrayed in “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” the nature of humankind to attempt to reach heights that they are not supposed to reach. Generally, the invention fails with Daedalus losing his son while Icarus loses his life.
In sum, the story of Daedalus and Icarus presents the consequences of jealous and disobedience in leading to the failure of humankind. Icarus’ death shows how disobedience leads to death. Daedalus’ failure, on the other hand, comes as a result of being over-ambitious.
References
Cookson, S. (2017). An Important Failure: Lessons from Daedalus and Icarus. In Advances in Human Aspects of Transportation (pp. 863-872). Springer, Cham.
Rattray, L. (2015). Landscape with the Fall of Undine–Margaret P. Murray. In Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country (pp. 129-140). Routledge.