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 from the Acropolis. Athena turned Perdix into a partridge and left a scar that looked like a partridge on Daedalus' right shoulder and Daedalus left Athens due to this. Such anecdotal details as these were embroideries upon the reputation of Daedalus as an innovator in many arts. In Pliny's Natural History (7.198) he is credited with inventing carpentry "and with it the saw, axe, plumb-line, drill, glue, and isinglass". Pausanias, in travelling around Greece, attributed to Daedalus numerous archaic wooden cult figures (see "xoana") that impressed him: "All the works of this artist, though somewhat uncouth to look at, nevertheless