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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by William Carlos
Williams
Summary and Analysis
The poem 'Landscape with the
Fall of Icarus' touches upon the Greek tragedy of Icarus. Icarus is the son of
Daedalus. Icarus and his father were exiled in Crete. He took flight from
imprisonment wearing the fragile wings his father had fashioned for him. Icarus
was warned by his father not to go near the sun to keep him safe form the
consequence of wax melting.
Careless of his father's
suggestion, Icarus came to fly higher and higher towards the sun. Ultimately,
the heat of the sun melted wings' wax. Then Icarus fell to the sea and died.
When he fell nothing paid attention to his tragic death.
The poem "Landscape with
the Fall of Icarus" is about human nature of indifference. The poet takes
the reference of mythological character Icarus to talk about human tendency to
indifference. When Icarus fell from the sky, it was spring and a farmer was
ploughing his field. Similarly, the edge of the sea was concerned with itself.
Furthermore, the sun too had no pity upon Icarus. Nobody liked to hear the
splash of Icarus drowning. The poem establishes a theme of growing selfishness
and individualism among mankind. At present no one has time to think and worry
about others' problems. A human is generally defined as a social and cultural
being. But under the impact of commercialization and monetary value, a man has
no time and interest to be generous, kind and supportive. Fall of Icarus is the
fall of humanity. It also signals degrading human values and essence of human
living. Both nature and humans behaved Icarus equally. The farmer could support
Icarus and keep him alive. Similarly, both the sun and the sea had no sincerity
to think about Icarus. The poem is about the journey of human beings from the
origin of social being to individual being. In competitive world, a person has
no time to turn back and worry about anybody else. Here, Icarus is the
representation of ordinary human being.
The poem "Landscape with
the Fall of Icarus" is ironical towards the general meaning of mankind,
spring, farmer and the nature. The poet silently attacks human nature and their
interest in the self. Generally, mankind is supposed to be social,
co-operative, kind and helpful. But such interpretation has turned to be in
agreeable one. Different than general belief, modern people are fully private,
individual, selfish and so on. That's why poem is explicitly ironical to the
definition of mankind.
In the poem, the spring
season is portrayed as the setting of Icarus's drowning. Generally, spring is
closely related to the idea of harmony, love, new birth, growth, romance, and
pleasure. But quite differently, the spring results into the unexpected demise
of Icarus, at the cost of all-round rejection and negligence by both human and
nature. Even the spring turns to be cruel and brutal when a man has no time and
interest to worry and suffers about other's suffering. In such pretext, spring
season has been ironically presented in the poem. The Idea of farmer is also
equally ironical. We suppose a farmer to be far from selfishness and individual
interest. But even the farmer had no interest and time to watch and worry the
fall of Icarus. It means that the modern farmers are like other city people.
Similarly, the idea of nature has been ironically presented in this poem.
Unlike mankind nature is taken as equally loving, caring and resourceful to mankind.
But, both the sun and the sea have no interest in the continual existence of
Icarus.
The poem "Landscape with
the Fall of Icarus" is a modern poem with some original and experimental
stylistic techniques. This poem is a plain description of a printing by Brughel
about the fall of a mythological character Icarus. The poem is about an
ordinary issue i.e. fall of a man. The poem has a deliberately violated the
themes of language, grammar and structure. We see no punctuation marks
throughout the poem. The poem "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" is
about human nature of indifference. The poet takes the reference of
mythological character Icarus to talk about human tendency to indifference.
When Icarus fell from the sky, it was spring and a farmer was ploughing his
field. Similarly, the edge of the sea was concerned with itself. Furthermore,
the sun too had no pity upon Icarus. Nobody liked to hear the splash of Icarus
drowning. The poem establishes a theme of growing selfishness and individualism
among mankind. At present, no one has time to think and worry about others'
problems.
The poem is not bounded by
any poetic principles of rhyme, rhythm and other musical elements. But
somewhere we find long distance rhyme with no deliberate purpose. The considerably
short length of each stanza creates a feeling of unimportance. The poet does
attempt to describe the scene in depth as the people have denied paying
attention to this accident. The organization of poem is so unique that each
stanza is short, usually, containing a sentence or less. Similarly, the poem
looks unusual in its stanza breakup. The poem is concluded in twenty-one lines
with three lines in each stanza. Only the first word of the poem is available
in capital letter. Throughout the poem we find incomplete sentences with no
proper agreement between the parts of speech. The poem is in the tercet style
of writing which consists of three line groups and each line has no more than
four words. This poem reads like a short story as it is quick to point out the
images a person would get in their head looking in painting. The poet describes
everything from the painting so literally from the season of spring to the
splash of Icarus drowning. The poet seems neutral about the case of Icarus
falling. He only puts some clear-cut imagery to provide his message and
thought.
The poet seems quite
conscious while choosing words. He heavily depends on imagery and juxtaposition
of words, referring the ideas of death and human indifference in it. William
Carols Williams as a neutral person, he speaks through some images that appeal
various senses of the readers. In this particular poem, both sound imagery and
visual imagery have been appropriately used. Under the visual imagery, we sense
'his field, 'edge of the sea', 'wings wax' and 'off the coast'. Similarly, the
poem also contains sound imagery. Sound imagery is contained in the phrases
'awake tingling' and 'a splash quite unnoticed'. In this way, images have been
aptly used in this poem to speak the message of growing indifference on the
side of human beings. All the visual imagery remained indifferent to helpless
Icarus. The theme of the poem is that what is a tragedy to one person will
often be a matter of complete indifference to the rest of the world. In the
poem, some unpleasant contrasts are made. Here, in the poem, we get contrast
between spring and fell, Icarus drowning and the year was awake tingling, a
farmer was ploughing and a splash quite unnoticed etc. The landscape of the
poem is lively even merry. The word pageantry suggests celebration and
merriment .The year was awake, it means the world of nature was full of life
and movement. We are told that the world in which Icarus falls to earth is
"concerned with itself" and the adverb "unsignificantly" is
used to express the attitude of the farmer to the catastrophe of Icarus. Even
when everything was in favour of life, Icarus came to lose his life mercilessly
and without getting human sight on his falling. This juxtaposition of life and
death is meant to force the reader from his/her complacency and question their
own attitude towards the suffering of the others.
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