Sehun Bolaji
10/14/19
Rhetorical Analysis On the Story of Icarus and Daedalus
In the story of Daedalus ( A famous craftsmen in Greek Mythology) and Icarus (His Son) was locked in a tower above Minos (The King of Crete), to keep the secrets of the labyrinth hidden. In order to escape, Daedalus using his crafting skills had crafted two pairs of wings for him and his son to escape. Since Daedalus had crafted the wings using wax, he warned Icarus not to fly too high so the wax won’t melt due to the sun or fly too low so the feathers wont get wet due to the seawater. On their way to freedom Icarus forgot his father’s warning and flew too close to the sun, causing him to fall to the sea and drown. The purpose of the story of Daedalus and Icarus is that you should always heed your parents warning. The basic concept of the story Daedalus and Icarus is that hubris (Pride) is a bad thing. It could be said that the subtext is that you should always heed the advice and warnings of your elders, particularly your parents.
The story of Icarus and Daedalus targeted a younger audience, as shown by how Icarus was a young protagonist and fell to his doom not only because of his pride, but because he did not heed his fathers, Daedalus, a more experienced and wiser man warnings. The tone of the story is Egotistical, Arrogant, and Grim. It was egotistical due to the fact that he let his pride get in the way of his judgment. It gave off an Arrogant tone because he did not heed his father’s warning even though he was warned about the consequences of it. Finally, a Grim tone was set because at the end he had faced due to his ignorance. The Myth uses the rhetorical appeal known to us as Pathos. This Myth has an emotional appeal as shown by it using a connection between father and son to get its moral lesson across. Pathos is more effective than ethos and logos due to the target audience. The target audience is a younger age group, to be more specific, those who don’t respect or listen to their elders, anyone older than them. By using a pathos appeal it keeps the younger audience more entertained. Using stats from ethos and facts from logos would bore the younger generation, if they’re not entertained they won’t be able to get anything out of this mythical story, prohibiting the writer from getting its message across. For instance, icarus getting cocky and flying too close to the sun and falling to his death is more entertaining than that of someone simply saying that listening to our guardians will have a positive effect on us in the future.
Work Cited
https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Icarus/icarus.html
