What are the motifs in The Wright Brothers: How They Invented the Airplane by Russell Freedman?

Vision is a recurring idea in this book. It took a great deal of vision for the Wright brothers to be able to create, design and fly the first successful Flyer. For almost 100 years man attempted to fly with little to no success. The men knew about the tragedy of Icarus. There is a famous Greek myth that details the story of Daedalus and his son Icarus. The father and son had escaped from prison on the island of Crete by fashioning wings out of wax and feathers. The men managed to fly away. Icarus became arrogant and flew so high that the sun melted the wax causing Icarus to fall into the sea and drown. The brothers were determined not to drown.