Last week, two corporate trainers from Bangalore paid a visit to the department where i work as a member of faculty of English. The trainers spoke about Organisational Behaviour and Interpersonal Skills and how both of them have been part of a success-formula in corporate world. As the meeting was proceeding, one of the speakers bumped on to the myth of Icarus. She was using the myth to drive in the spirit of passion amongst the listeners. The use of it generated much dispute amongst the audience. She sought the help of the other presenter who spoke passionately about the hero of Icarus who lived for his passion and flew to his death and became a symbol of passion filled life.
I have chosen to write on the theme of the death of Icarus as i was the one who opposed the views expressed by the trainers on the occasion. A look into the myth of Icarus would provide a better understanding of the life of Icarus. The story of Icarus is one of the minor elements in the vast world of Greek Mythology. Icarus figures in the story of Theseus, Minos and Daedalus. Minos was the ruler of Crete and had the gift of having a master architect, Daedalus. Daedalus is credited with designing the world-famous labyrinth in Crete that housed the half-human and half-bull Minotaur.
The story of Icarus begins with the arrival of Theseus to Crete. Theseus is the son of Aegeus who ruled Athens and fathered Theseus through Aethra and left the Greek village much before Theseus was born. Aegeus made a plan in agreement with his wife that if the son grew to be strong, that is if the child were a boy, he could remove a boulder and take the sword underneath it and could pay a visit to the King's chamber. Theseus visited his father when he was young and strong enough to remove the sword and came to know about the terrible curse that had befallen the kingdom of Athens. The son of Minos, Androgeus once paid a visit to Athens and Aegeus sent him to kill a bull, where the son of Minos died fighting the bull. The angered Minos routed the city of Athens and pardoned the Athenians only on condition that they should send seven maidens and seven young men every nine years to be fed to Minotaur.
Minotaur is the son of Pasiphae, Minos' wife and a bull. The God of Sea, Poseidon, gave the bull to Minos to be sacrificed to Him. Minos could not bear to slay the bull and he kept it. Angered God of Sea made the bull fall in love with Minos's wife and the result was the half-human-half-bull baby. As the baby was born, Minos summoned the great architect Daedalus to design a labyrinth and put the baby in it. The fourteen youth that came from Athens were directly introduced into the labyrinth that was a tangled maze as all path led to the Minotaur. Theseus accompanied the youth and at the moment the troupe entered and paraded through Crete, Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, as luck would have it or as all myths would have it, fell head over heels in love with Theseus. She summoned Daedalus, as she never wished Theseus to die in the maze, and sought from him a strategy to escape. He advised her that Theseus should enter the maze with a spool of thread and tie it at the entrance door and unwind it as he would proceed into the maze. This Theseus did and as he was valorous could easily slay the Minotaur and escape with Ariadne.
The angry king of Crete, Minos suspected the hand of Daedalus in the act as he firmly believed in the mastery of Daedalus. He put Daedalus and his son Icarus in the labyrinth. Though Daedalus designed the maze, he himself could not figure out the escape route out of it. He made wings using the available material and glued them to their bodies with wax. He advised his son not to fly close to the Sun or high in the air as the wax would melt and detach the wings. Daedalus wanted to escape to Sicily where he could get asylum. Not heeding to the words of his father and overcome by a sense of being carried away by the excitement of flying, Icarus flew close to the Sun and allowed the wings to melt and fell into a sea and died. The father on the other hand safely reached the shores of Sicily.
Icarus could have been passionate about flying as no one had a chance to do that. However with a father like Daedalus he could think of feeding his passion with more flying stints at a later period of time. He was in a rush and the maddening passion of urgency in flying resulted in his peril. A complete understanding of the story would never take for granted the idolising of Icarus as a model for passion. What he did was not only disobeying the words of a father but also a skilled artisan who knew everything about objects literally. The myth was used by the trainers to convey the idea that it was alright not to heed to the words of elders and one would personally testify everything and in doing so they would relish life passionately. The article is still open for discussion.
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