The Manipulative Sirens and Their Victims in Margaret Atwood's Siren Song
In Homer's Odyssey, the Sirens are mythical creatures whose enchanting voices lure sailors to their deaths. These women have fascinated people ever since Homer sung the lines of his epic, inspiring artists of many genres from oil paintings to films. In her poem "Siren Song," Margaret Atwood re-envisions the Sirens to draw a comparison between the myths and modern life. Atwood portrays men as victims of "Sirens" (women) by making her readers the victims.
Atwood begins her poem with the speaker mysteriously introducing a secret. Speaking to her audience, the Siren--whose role is played in real life by women and paralleled by poets--attracts attention immediately with her luring phrases and vocabulary: "This is the one song everyone / would like to learn: the song / that is irresistible..." (1-3). Even with the word "siren" screaming, "Warning! Danger!" the loud ringing serves only to catch more notice. Readers respond with interest, wanting to hear this song and wondering why it is "irresistible" (3). Atwood uses colons in this first stanza as her tool for pulling readers into her story. Her colons hint at the revelation of this great secret; readers must read on to discover it.
Rather than stopping abruptly, Atwood carries her thought to the second stanza by beginning it with a lower case letter. However the speaker does not continue that thought by telling the secret right away as the reader would expect. Instead Atwood gives the speaker a seductive voice through her description of the enigmatic power of the Siren song. The speaker teases readers with evidence of its strength that "forces men / to leap overboard" (4-5), plunging to their deaths. ...
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...t works every time" (27).
In "Siren Song," Atwood plays off the mythical idea that Sirens seduce their victims in order to demonstrate the same manipulative tendencies in women and poets-women seduce men; poets seduce their readers. She proves her theory by exercising it and capturing her readers in her own poem. Her carefully crafted language forms a trap for her readers, demonstrating poetry's powerfully seductive nature. Readers become entranced in her story, and, after facing death as the Siren's (Atwood's) victims, her readers agree that this is "the song / that is irresistible..." (2-3) and "it works every time" (27).
Works Cited
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. New York: Mentor, 1990.
VanSpanckeren, Kathryn and Jan Garden Castro. Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988.
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