Icarus By Edward Field

Icarus Based on the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, Edward Field’s poem “Icarus” href=”/papers/havisham-poem-carol-ann-duffy-1084″ data-wpel-link=”internal”> has developed modernity from the time of the ancient Greece. Field developed this modernity by using literary devices so that the reader would have a broader understanding on Icarus. In the beginning of the href=”/papers/poetry-explication-first-poem-for-you-by-kim-addonizio-4268″ data-wpel-link=”internal”>poem, Field uses irony when the police don’t suspect anything more than the “usual drowning” because in reality Icarus had “swum away’.

Essay Example on Icarus Poem Meaning

Fields use of diction also puts the story into contemporary setting because when he mengiving that the witnesses had “ran off to gang war” he is iving the reader twentieth century examples because police and gangs did not exist during Greek time. In the second stanza Juxtaposition occurs when Icarus goes from being defiant in his times to “nice Mr. Hicks” in modernity.

An allusion is then being made when Field says that the neighbors would “never dream that that gray, respectable suit concealed arms that controlled huge wings” meaning that the “gray respectable suit” type look made Icarus blend with all the other boring people and his “concealed rms” are not “arms” used in gang wars but those with which he attempted flight.

However no one would ever expect this from him because he is living an everyday life that any other ordinary person would live. As you move on to the third stanza Field is finally able to adapt the story of Icarus to the modern world by using wings as a symbol.

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In the beginning of Icarus his “arms… had controlled huge wings” and it then moves to him “construct[ing] small wings and [trying] to fly’ but fails. The shift from Icarus having huge wings to the infirmity of his small wings shows how Icarus has fallen from greatness. His “eyes had once compelled the sun” and now his largest goal is to reach “the light fixture on the ceiling”. This comparison symbolizes the high expectations he once had for himself and how they are now lowered and yet still unobtainable.

These symbols helped Field modernize this classic story by giving Icarus problems that relate to the audience. Instead of flying as high as the sun we are often limited and fail. This shows that even the best of us fall from our highest points and sometimes when we o fail it could be because we don’t follow instructions properly and instead take these crazy risks, At the end of the poem in the last stanza, Field uses contrast and comes to the conclusion that Icarus would have been much more satisfied if he would have died.

Icarus had thought of himself as a hero “and dreamt of… The tragic hero fall” but now “rides commuter trains, [and] serves various committees” With this being said it is obvious that Icarus has failed himself and this is clear to the audience when he “wishes he would have drowned” iccarus

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