Saturday, October 2, 2010

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

           In the poem "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", William Carlos Williams is very simple at telling what happened. There 's not much there but when you really look at the poem and actually try and and understand, there is a bigger meaning. In "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", William Carlos Williams suggests that human beings are selfish and there are consequences to peoples actions, he shows this by the allusion he creates and his chose of words. In all three pieces, what William Carlos Williams is suggesting is shown. 
           From the poem "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus",  you can see how people are selfish and there are consequences to everyones actions. In stanza six, line one, when William Carlos Williams says the word insignificantly, he is describing Icarus as being insignificant. In stanza one, line one, when William Carlos Williams says the word unnoticed, he's referring to Icarus's death as being unnoticeable. By using these words the author is showing how people are being selfish. They obviously know whats going on but no one is doing much about it. In the poem in stanza five, when the author says, "sweating in the sun that melted the wings wax", from the story Icarus flew to high up after being warned, therefore he fell into the water and drowned. The poem actually said more then what was written.
         In the painting, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus", Bruegel suggests that people notice what they want, some people really do just care about themselves. In the painting you can clearly see that someone has fallen into the water. Bruegel has drew someone on the shore line right where Icarus is drowning in the water. Bruegel has also drawn two other people just standing around, no minding anything that going on. From the poem, William Carlos Williams, is writing it from someones point of view, and the painting is a piece that is describing the poem and you can clearly see that no one is doing anything. So that goes back to what William Carlos Williams is suggesting about how people are selfish.
        In the story, 'The myth of Daedalus and Icarus", Ovid suggests that there are rules and that everything happens for a reason. Ovid shows us this when he has Daedalus explain to Icarus the rules of being able to fly with these wings. He tells him no to go to high because the wax on the wings will melt, he tells him no to go to low because the water will weight them down. So Icarus flew to high and his wings melted, he ended up drowning, if he had listened to the rules this wouldn't have happened. This all goes back to what William Carlos Williams is suggesting that human beings are selfish and there are consequences to everyones actions. 
        From all three pieces the same point comes up, Icarus did what he wanted, therefore being selfish, in the end he died. His consequence for flying to high was death. William Carlos Williams showed how people can be selfish and how everything people do, if bad, there will be a consequence for it. 
      

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