How is the story of icarus like that of phaethon?

Answer 1

In very brief, Daedalus was a skilled craftsman from Crete, who created the labyrinth for King Minos in Knossos. He and his son, Icarus, were imprisoned by King Minos, and Daedalus crafted wings out of wax and feathers so that the two could escape. Against his father's warnings, Icarus dared to fly too close to the sun, thus melting his wings, and fell to his death.

As for Phaeton, his mother was a mortal from Greece, and his father was the sun god Helios. In order to prove his semi-divine blood, Phaeton demanded from Helios the use of his chariot, which in Greek Mythology, was the sun itself, drawn by fire-breathing horses. Helios resisted at first, but reluctantly acquiesced. Upon taking the reins, Phaeton lost control of the chariot, and the steeds drew the sun close to the Earth, resulting in mass evaporation of the planet's oceans, lakes, et cetera. To avoid a major conflagration, and thus the end of life on the planet, Zeus struck Phaeton down with a lightning bolt, killing him.

In both cases the main characters are victims of hubris and overzealous ambitions. Icarus did not heed his father's warnings and flew too close to the sun; symbolically speaking, he dared to defy the limitations of mere mortals and challenged the gods. Similarly, Phaeton demanded to control the sun -- or to be god-like -- and failed; although he was semi-divine, the feat was no match for feeble mortality. The moral of both stories is that when humanity attempts to control nature, or to be like gods, the end result is its own destruction (think about the Atom bomb as a modern day example of this). Do we, as the human race, acknowledge, accept, defy or reject our natural limitations?