Romantic Spirit, and a 'Boon'

Monday class with Dr. Edwin was like, erm… sexually explicit because most of us brought pictures of Deadalus and Icarus flying or probably ‘Fall of Icarus’. Most of us have pictures of two men flying half-naked or something. The picture that Dr. Edwin was looking for was a landscape picture with Icarus falling into the water with his one or two legs up in the air. Through Dr. Edwin explanations of the Icarus and intertexuality, I understood that Icarus is a Romantic spirit and how people use the story of ‘Deadalus and Icarus’ to express the same message of the story through art such as paintings, songs, and poems. He even told us how art can tell us something if we try to look or observe it carefully. We also examined stories of ‘Mahabatra’ and ‘The Son of the Turtle Spirit’. When we began our discussion on ‘Mahabatra’; he asked all of us what the story all about is. I told him ‘sacrifice of a son to his father’. Then, he paused for a moment and asked us what sacrifice is. All of us tried to come up what is the meaning of ‘sacrifice’. He said to check up in the dictionary. At home, I looked at it and it states “when you decide not to have something valuable, in order to get something that is more important”. I guessed it is not a sacrifice. I wanted to twist the truth. It is an act of sacrifice because the son willing to be ‘sonless’ or do not have children of his own and do not want to be a king and what did he get, a ‘boon’ which he is able to die anytime as he please. Nobody can kill him or he falls ill. That is even better. I think.