The Tragic Genius of Daedalus: Greek Myth for Teens

I’ve always had a conflicted relationship with stories about fathers and sons, which is why the myth of Daedalus has always spoken to me. On the surface, Daedalus is a hero—sometimes even described as a demigod. But look deeper and you'll find a darker tale. Daedalus, the legendary Athenian inventor, is a prototype for the scientist-artist: brilliant, creative, but deeply flawed.

Growing up, my own father worked in an oil plant as a mechanic—far from a Daedalus figure. Yet, I always admired the idea of the accomplished, technically-skilled dad, full of techne. In the Greek myth, Daedalus becomes jealous of his gifted nephew, Talos, and pushes him from the heights of the Acropolis. Some versions say Talos dies; others that he’s transformed into a partridge. Either way, Daedalus is convicted and exiled.

In Crete, Daedalus is caught up in King Minos’s political games, building the labyrinth to contain the monstrous Minotaur. The web of myths—Minos, Pasiphaë, the bull, Theseus, and Ariadne—all spiral around Daedalus. But at the heart is a theme that feels painfully modern: the unintended consequences of genius and ambition.

Eventually, Daedalus and his son Icarus attempt their escape from Crete on wings fashioned from wax and feathers. Despite his father's warnings, Icarus flies too close to the sun; the wax melts and he falls into the sea. The story is a cautionary tale—about invention, about parenting, and about the tragic cost of overreaching. Talos and Icarus are both sacrifices, consumed by Daedalus's drive and flaws.

This myth still resonates today: human innovation can bring light—or unleash disaster. Whether it's fossil fuels, AI, or air conditioning, our inventions often have unintended consequences. We, like Daedalus, are both brilliant and blind to the costs.

After Athens and Crete, Daedalus ends up on the island of King Cocalus, still inventing, still being hunted by Minos. His cleverness solves the riddle of the spiral shell, but it also gives him away. Even at the end, he cannot stop inventing—no matter the danger.

So are we the inheritors of our fathers’ mistakes, or do we forge our own paths? Teaching the myth of Daedalus to teenagers is challenging but rewarding. The themes—creativity, jealousy, consequence—are universal and deeply relevant.

I’ve created a classroom-ready lesson plan on Daedalus for middle and high school ELA teachers. It’s perfect for units on Greek mythology, invention, or even modern novels like Percy Jackson. Bring this compelling story to your students—and add it to your teaching toolbox!

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Download the Daedalus & Icarus Lesson Plan

Explore the full resource—discussion prompts, activities, visuals, and more for the Daedalus myth:

Icarus Falls to his Death; a Cautionary Tale from Greek Mythology

"Icarus" by Henri Matisse

How many stories exist about a father who loses his son? How many tales recount a son who falls away from his father? Throughout literature, how often do we encounter the theme of a flawed father whose ambition causes him to lose sight of what’s closest to him—or a son whose first taste of freedom is so great, he cannot contain it?

Visualizing the Story of Icarus in Art

Image source: Icarus (from the Four Disgracers) by Hendrick Goltzius, 1588.

The myth of Daedalus and Icarus is one such story—a cautionary tale originating from Crete in the Eastern Mediterranean. Thanks to writers like Ovid and Apollodorus, this myth has survived for millennia. In both versions, the essential plot remains: Icarus, the son, is ultimately undone by his own ambition. His tragic fall has been memorialized in art and literature ever since.

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, you can view Hendrick Goltzius’s engraving of Icarus from his series, “The Four Disgracers.” Here, Icarus is depicted plummeting, his body monstrous and his expression a blend of rage and regret. His father, Daedalus, is distant in the composition—still flying while Icarus is banished by the sun’s blazing glory. Goltzius captures the tragic moment, forever suspending Icarus between hope and doom.

In Célestin Nanteuil’s depiction, Icarus appears as a fallen angel—wings broken, body delicate, lying lifeless on the rocks beside the sea. Here, the tragedy is more peaceful, yet no less poignant.

Kid Icarus from Nintendo

Before I learned about Greek myth, my brothers and I played Kid Icarus on Nintendo. In the game, a boy-angel named Pit struggles to fly, searching for agency and purpose. The game bears little resemblance to the original myth—except for the wings. Unlike Pit, Icarus of myth is trapped by the limits set by his father, and the story becomes a meditation on family, agency, and the hazards of reckless freedom.

The Origin Story of Daedalus Foreshadows the Fate of Icarus

Film still from Jim Henson's "Storyteller" version of the Icarus myth

According to some sources, Daedalus, Icarus’s father, fled Athens for Crete after causing his nephew’s death. In the Storyteller adaptation by Jim Henson Studios, this moment of envy and loss haunts Daedalus, foreshadowing Icarus’s fate. In Crete, Daedalus builds the Labyrinth for King Minos and is eventually imprisoned with his son. Their dramatic escape—on wings fashioned from wax and feathers—becomes the heart of the myth. Daedalus warns Icarus: fly too low and the sea’s spray will weigh you down; fly too high and the sun will melt your wings. Of course, like most teenagers, Icarus cannot resist. The taste of freedom is too sweet.

What is the Moral of this Greek Myth?
Traditionally, the myth of Icarus is a warning: ignoring wise advice leads to disaster. But as storytellers like Henson suggest, the tragedy is also inherited—Daedalus’s own failings shape Icarus’s fate. It recalls the story of Abraham and Isaac, and the universal question: must the son pay for the sins of the father? This timeless myth invites us to imagine a different ending—one of redemption, not just ruin.

The Story of Icarus Resonates With Me Personally
The struggle for agency—breaking away from the nest—is a universal experience. From the Christian parable of the Prodigal Son to the modern classroom, we are all seeking both freedom and belonging. As a teacher, I’ve returned to this myth many times. My students always ask, “Why didn’t Icarus just use better glue?” A fair question!

Teaching the Myth of Icarus and Daedalus in Middle and High School
The myth of Icarus and Daedalus remains powerful for students today. I’ve created a classroom-ready 3-day lesson plan that you can use with any text version of the story, guiding students through close reading, visual analysis, and creative writing. Artistic retellings—from Goltzius to Nintendo—invite deep discussion and critical thinking.

Classroom Resource: Daedalus & the Labyrinth

Dive deeper into the myth with this interactive, standards-aligned resource!
Perfect for ELA and Humanities teachers, this lesson features readings, visual organizers, critical thinking questions, and creative writing prompts—all inspired by Daedalus and his legendary maze.

Explore more resources for teaching mythology and literature at Stones of Erasmus on TpT!

Movie Clip: The Worst Christmas Eve Ever (Gremlins)

Gremlins (1984)

This otherwise comic film is lodged with perhaps the most tragic dialogue in Hollywood history ...

Kate: Now I have another reason to hate Christmas.
Billy Peltzer: What are you talking about?
Kate: The worst thing that ever happened to me was on Christmas. Oh, God. It was so horrible. It was Christmas Eve. I was 9 years old. Me and Mom were decorating the tree, waiting for Dad to come home from work. A couple hours went by. Dad wasn't home. So Mom called the office. No answer. Christmas Day came and went, and still nothing. So the police began a search. Four or five days went by. Neither one of us could eat or sleep. Everything was falling apart. It was snowing outside. The house was freezing, so I went to try to light up the fire. That's when I noticed the smell. The firemen came and broke through the chimney top. And me and Mom were expecting them to pull out a dead cat or a bird. And instead, they pulled out my father. He was dressed in a Santa Claus suit. He'd been climbing down the chimney... his arms loaded with presents. He was gonna surprise us. He slipped and broke his neck. He died instantly. And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus. 

Gremlins (1984): Directed by Joe Dante. Written by Chris Columbus. Starring Zach Galligan, Phoebe Cates, and Hoyt Axton

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What is the Difference between Comedy and Tragedy?

"Midway in my life's journey, 'I stumbled into a wood.'" 
— Dante, Inferno, Canto I, Line 1

    What is the difference between comedy and tragedy? We enter the woods; at the threshold of woods and plain are the dividing lines between tragic and comedic, between love and loss. The woods represent chaos in literary symbolism. Or not. Everything depends on the red wheelbarrow. Is it how we see it? In Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, when the eloping lovers enter the woods at night, all hell breaks loose. Lovers are switched. A wayward actors' troop is also lost, set to perform at a state wedding, but one of their players is turned into an ass, being an ass anyway - his name is Bottom. Puck, the mischievous sprite, pours a potion into the Queen of the Fairies' eyes and she falls in love with Bottom.
    In the morning, though, after all the enchantments have worn off, everything is turned right - the basic structure of a comedy. A comedy is technically a narrative that begins with a conflict, like mixed up lovers or lost in a wood, but in the end conflict is resolved - which is why Dante's journey through Hell is called a comedy. Dante goes through the stages of hell and survives to tell the tale. Dante, with Virgil the poet's help, makes it to Purgatory and, eventually, with Beatrice's intercession, ends up seeing the beatific vision (which is quite boring, if you ask me). Isn't the journey in the telling?
    And what is the difference between a comedy and a tragedy? Is the line always direct, written in the sand? I agree the line is a thin one, as played out in Woody Allen's farce Melinda and Melinda. The movie is a demonstration of the thin line between both genres. Is life at its essence tragic or comic? The movie tells the story of Melinda from two perspectives, one tragic, the other comedic. In the tragic version, Melinda shows up at her sister's dinner party unannounced and all hell breaks loose. She dumps her husband for a younger photographer but the center cannot hold and she ends up in the tragic version in a mental hospital. In the comic version, Melinda shows up at the dinner party as a childless and down-trodden neighbor who captures the attention and delight of the guests. The film cleverly goes back and forth between the two stories as a way to illustrate the point the difference between tragedy and comedy. For the ancient Greeks, tragedy was primarily a cathartic experience. To process tragedy, the events of the narrative are re-enacted on the stage and by seeing the horrible events unfold on stage (or on screen) the spectator comes away cleansed from the experience. Thus the invention of drama. Emotion is processed publicly as a way to experience collectively the pain of tragedy. Even today don't we go to a sad movie and cry? What happens in this experience? Are we sad for our own sorrows or someone else's? Are our tears and identification with a character on the stage? Do we cry so we can replace our own sufferings with the sorrows of someone else, an emotional scapegoat? Tragedy is not a private act, but a public one. We publicly place sorrow on the stage to feel better afterward in the same way we laugh collectively in front of a prime time TV show even when it is not funny. Catharsis is a purging of the emotions but the same can be said when we witness, and privately enjoy the suffering of others; a little bit of schadenfreude, gaining pleasure from the downfall of others somehow makes us feel a little bit more exalted. Even though we don't like to admit it, don't we often say to ourselves about someone else's tragic story, I am glad it isn't me?
Odysseus slays the suitors

Comedy and tragedy depend on a slight twist of fate; Woody Allen likes to play with this idea, beginning Melinda and Melinda with a discussion of the difference between the two. It is a gross deduction, but life is a comedy when we are the ones who do not suffer and it's a tragedy when the tables are turned. When Dante is in hell he is a comedy for he goes through hell commenting on the suffering of other people. Dante meets Odysseus in hell, the man of many wiles who was separated from his wife and family for twenty years. Dante punished Odysseus in hell for his extreme pride or hubris, a lack of understanding of his own human weakness. Odysseus in life is punished to roam the seas in a search for home because he relied on his own intellect and not on the gods. Odysseus returns home, rids his halls of the suitors and he reunites with his wife and son. Dante does not view Odysseus so comedically, however, and remains suspicious of Odysseus as if inspired by Poseidon's rage. Dante sees Odysseus as the man of many deceits. The flip flop is directly related to fate, perception, choices, and perhaps luck. If I am deceived to believe life is merely either a comedy or a tragedy, I deceive myself. Pride and self-deception cause war; cause intolerance - the inability to see truth in any given situation. The blindness is our own. Someone may ask, why are seers physically blind? By losing their physical sight, they gain an inner sight of the mind. It is not what you see but how you see it. The narcissist sees only himself. The hero sees his victories. A murder does not see his crime. A lover sees an ideal. I am blinded from truth not because truth is absolute, but I am unable to decode properly what I see before me. The Greeks seem to have understood this which is why they created the blind seer who could see but they also saw that most of us are Cassandra and we do not listen. It is not that we do want to listen, but rather, we are blocked - flustered for a bit, and we cannot read properly. It is in the tangle of interpretation that we go back and forth: comedy, tragedy, comedy, tragedy, comedy, tragedy, comedy, tragedy . . .

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Let's Go to the Museum: "Oedipus Wrecks" in the Ninth Grade English Classroom

In this post, I write about a recent Ninth Grade English lesson based on the New York Times Learning Center curriculum where we turned our classroom into a museum full of objects based on the Greek Tragedy Oedipus the King by Sophocles.
Museum Exhibition of Oedipus the King
In all periods of my Ninth Grade English class at De La Salle High School in New Orleans, we created a museum exhibition for Sophocles tragedy Oedipus Rex.

Students create a puzzle game based on
Oedipus the King in a Ninth Grade English class.

In every corner of the room galleries were set up to showcase different significant objects from the play: the noose, the brooch, the crown, the walking stick, the nail, the masks the actors wore, to demonstrate non-linguistically the themes of the Ancient Greek tragedy.

In quadrant one museum-goers played the memory game, trying to remember different objects from the play. Can anyone remember where the brooch went? If you look carefully you can see one museum-goer chose a noose to demonstrate the noose Jocasta chose to commit suicide; I thought they performed the act with appropriate cheer.

Ouch.

I am glad we didn't have demonstrations of the brooch.

One group of students brought Oedipus cupcakes.

One group had sword fights to act out the fatal battle between Oedipus and his father at the crossroads. Clever. But, I heard one girl say, "He wants to kill his father?"

I liked the Oedipus crossword puzzle the kids created on the smartboard. That was fun. I found "furnace" and "citadel".

But, I could not get the smartpen to work. Doi *me imitating Homer Simpson*. So we had to remember what words were previously discovered.

I noticed that the success rate for the project was high. I should try to implement more projects like this one in the classroom. What do you think? I think it is important to try to encourage students to express in a non-linguistic form the themes of a piece of literature. Students react to thematic significance when they see the potent art of the literary piece brought to life. Isn't this what the Greeks did? They did not sit around in a classroom and underline important passages. In a way, it is the artistic expression of the work. It is a way to bring the work back to life; to take it from the textbook and reify the dramatic action.

I got the idea for the project from a New York Times learning center lesson plan using the idea of Orhan Pamuk's new novel the Museum of Innocence. In his new novel, every chapter is devoted to an object the main character Kemal associates with his ex-lover. We read the article in class and discussed ways we could create our own museum of innocence for Oedipus Rex. Fun stuff.

Well, I am off to attend a birthday party for my cousin. He turned sixteen today. Ain't that sweet?

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