Stephen Dedalus Stephen Dedalus Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" and an important character in Joyce's "Ulysses". In "Stephen Hero", an early version of what became "Portrait", Stephen's surname is spelled "Daedalus" in more precise allusion to Daedalus, the architect in Greek myth who was contracted by King Minos to build the Labyrinth in which he would imprison his wife's son the Minotaur. Buck Mulligan makes reference to the mythological namesake in "Ulysses", telling Stephen, "Your absurd
Daedalus the waves ... a hawk-like man flying sunward above the sea, a prophecy of the end he had been born to serve”. Daedalus is said to have created statues that were so realistic that they had to be tied down to stop them from wandering off. In "Meno", Socrates and Meno are debating the nature of knowledge and true belief when Socrates refers to Daedalus' statues: "... if they are not fastened up they play truant and run away; but, if fastened, they stay where they are." Daedalus In Greek mythology, Daedalus (; "Daidalos" "cunningly wrought", perhaps related to δαιδάλλω