Figure of Speech and Ancient Greece Essay

Modernity has certainly evolved from the time of the ancient Greece. However, the advancements in technology defecate non necessarily created a Utopian society. In Icarus, a poem by Edward Field, a mythological character is place in the bustling and oxymoronic reality of the modern world. Figurative language, irony, syntax, and perspectives are necessary elements of Fields relocation of Icarus, whose relocation exposes an alienating and unrelenting twentieth century setting. Irony and contrast are immediately evident as Icaruss story unfolds in the second millennium of the common era. fountain be depicting the setting and its inhabitants, the loudspeaker system highlights some oxymorons in circulating(prenominal) behavior. Witnesses to Icaruss mishap run off to a gang war, a cruel satire of urban life and ironical reversion of roles in just one line. Furthermore, Icaruss report at the police mail is filed and forgotten, one element denying the purpose of the other. In addition to this, modern practices bug out to contrast those of Icaruss original setting in ancient Greece, tales were non written solely sang, and they certainly werent forgotten.Thus, though lacking nominate to the protagonist, the first stanza subtly implies immediate differences between Icaruss traditional root word and his new one. The second stanza begins with yet another juxtaposition of the original and the circumscribed while the foolish Icarus would have been deemed disobedient in his times, he becomes straitlaced Mr. Hicks in modernity. As the speaker begins to describe Icarus directly, another allusion to modern tenets is make Icaruss suit concealed arms, which we soon find out though that they are not the arms used in gang wars but those with which he attempted flight.Icaruss neighbors cannot perceive his sadness at the trouble of his deed, though, and the gentle time (and air) traveler does not wish to upset them by revealing the truths. In this case, a metonymic front yards is used by the speaker to symbolize the suburban lifestyle and moralistic attitude of the citizenry surrounding Icarus. In creating the final analogies and contrasts between the past and present Icaruses, the speaker draws into the tragic hero side of the protagonist and uses it in a rhetorical question at the end of the second stanza.Unfortunately for Icarus, it seems, he did not fall to his death but to the middling stature of the merely talented he cannot find serenity in an environment where personalized sound judgment (Icaruss neighbors) cannot reconcile with the group activities (participating in committees and riding commuter trains). victimisation anaphora, the first two lines of the third stanza convey Icaruss longing for tragic departure, juxtaposing nightly reflection and daily attempts at flight.Lacking the success he had in the past, regular(a) though it had cost him, Icarus comes to the conclusion that his role would have been much more satisfactory had he drowned. Field employs techniques of subject (contrast and irony) and of how the content is shaped (anaphora and figurative language). In doing so, he conveys both poetically personal reflections and an effective change of Icaruss setting, shaping this work as an even more tragic story for the protagonist than his death in had been.