A portrait of the artist as a young man is a classic work of the 20th centaury. While some writers have become classic through their simplicity and their explanations of what is actually happening, like Dickens, writers like James Joyce have become classics for their wonderful use of literary devices. Allusions are just one of the many literary devices that James Joyce uses, but the novel would not have been complete without them. There are many allusions made in the novel and they all .
Out of all the allusions made in A Portrait of the Artist as a Yung Man, the most prominent and easily seen is the allusion to the story of Daedaulus and Icarus. Joyce alludes to this story thoughout the novel, starting with Stephen's last name, Dedalus. The mythical Deadalus is a wise inventor who created wax wings and escaped the labyrinth. Daedalus" son, Icarus, however flew too high in the wax wings, they melted and he drowned. If you take this on its own it seems like Stephen is being compared to Deadalus and that he is (or will be) a great artist, just as Deadalus was a great artificer. This is the connection that Stephen himself sees and is aware of, "his name seemed to him as a prophecy" (pg. 173). If you look deeper however, there are other allusions to the myth that cause us to think otherwise of Stephen. For example: .
"His heart trembled; his breath came faster and a wild spirit passed over his limbs as though he were soaring sunward. His heart trembled in an ecstasy of fear and his soul was in flight. His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and commingled with the element of the spirit. An ecstasy of flight made radiant eyes and wild his breath and tremulous and wild and radiant his windswept limbs.
-One! Two! . . . Look out! .
-O, cripes, I'm drownded! .
. . This was the call of life to his soul not the dull gross voice of the world of duties and despair, not the inhuman voice that had called him to the pale service of the altar.
