ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Stephen’s namesake, Daedalus, is a figure from Greek mythology, a renowned craftsman who designs the famed Labyrinth of Crete for King Minos.

Detailed explanation-2: -Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce’s literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographic novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) and an important character in Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses.

Detailed explanation-3: -Joyce gave his hero the surname Dedalus after the mythic craftsman Daedalus, who devised the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete and who created wings of wax and feathers for himself and his son Icarus.

Detailed explanation-4: -Modeled after Joyce himself, Stephen is a sensitive, thoughtful boy who reappears in Joyce’s later masterpiece, Ulysses.

Detailed explanation-5: -The myth of Daedalus and Icarus serves as a structuring element in the novel, uniting the central themes of individual rebellion and discovery, producing a work of literature that illuminates the motivations of an artist, and the development of his individual philosophy.