Icarus and Daedalus in Toni Morrison's "Song of Solomon"

Abstract

In Song of Solomon Toni Morrison rewrites the legend of the Flying Africans and the Myth of Icarus to create her own Myth. Her depiction of the black hero’s search for identity has strong mythical overtones. Morrison rescues those elements of mythology black culture which are still relevant to blacks and fuses them with evident allusions to Greek mythology. She reinterprets old images and myths of flight, the main mythical motif in the story. Her Icarus engages on an archetypical journey to the South, to his family past, led by his Daedalic guide, on which he finally recovers his ancestral ability to fly. His flight signals a spiritual epiphany in the hero’s quest for self-definition in the black community.

Keywords

• myth
• flight
• quest
• identity
• icarus
• daedalus