Stephen Dedalus
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Stephen Dedalus was James Joyce's literary alter ego, as well as the central protagonist and antihero of two of his early works: Stephen Hero, and Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Dedalus also plays a significant role in Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses, a novel based on the events of Homer's Odyssey.
In Stephen Hero, we find the surname written as "Daedalus," an immediate allusion to the Greek figure. Upon significantly revising the mammoth Stephen Hero text into the much more compact A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Joyce opted to shorten the name to "Dedalus" (as Buck Mulligan puts it in Ulysses, "Your absurd name, an ancient Greek!") Stephen Dedalus also appears in Ulysses as a parallel to Telemachus. See Richard Ellmann's revised biography, page 148.
As a character, Stephen seems to parallel many facets of Joyce’s life and personality. As if to further corroborate this, Stephen's first name comes from the first Christian martyr and, in a curious juxtaposition, his surname references the mythological figure Daedalus, a brilliant artificer who constructed a pair of wax wings for himself and his son Icarus as a means of escaping the island of Crete, where they were imprisoned by King Minos (who contracted Daedalus to build a Labyrinth to contain the Minotaur). Some critics suggest that Stephen's surname also reflects the labyrinthine quality of Stephen's developmental journey in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
The choice to use the name Dedalus could also represent Stephen's wish to "fly" away from the constrants of religion, nationality, and politics which he feels hold him back artistically.
[edit] Quote
You speak to me of language, nationality, religion...I shall try to fly by those nets.
--A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Chapter 5
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
--Ulysses, Episode 9
Welcome O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge into the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. Old father, old artificer hold me now and forever in thy stead.
--A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
--Ulysses, Episode 2de:Stephen Dedalus nl:Stephen Dedalus
