The end of "The Portrait of the Artist" – father and son relationship?

Mr. Dedalus’s high spirits and hopefulness that we observed in earlier chapters have drained away by the end of the book. He has become just one more thing that Stephen must escape from in his self-enforced exile from his homeland. In the closing lines, Stephen addresses his mystical father figure, Daedalus, when he says "Old father, old artificer," and this is his final renunciation of his family, home, and country.