Sirens: the dangerous, yet beautiful majestic creatures of the sea, who led nearby sailors to shipwreck with their enchanting voices. Some say voices can’t entice people enough to lead them overboard to their death, but those people have not had the dreadful pleasure of coming in contact with the dangerously, scary sirens. Those who have read Homer’s text, “The Odyssey,” know how dangerous these creatures can be. As evidenced from Homer’s text, sirens have many strengths, they do many things to show strengths also, and finally, as shown in the text, it's obvious they play the role as antagonists.
First the sirens have many great strengths, one including their voices. These monstrous beings can sing beautiful songs that inveigle people to get off of ships and lead them straight to sudden death. Another great strength sirens have is the power of life and death for all crew members passing through their territory. “The song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls.” This quote from Homer’s text proves how powerful the captivating strengths of sirens really are.
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Secondly, the sirens choose to sing to capture people.
Even though people can see the remains of humans who were once killed, the siren’s voices control the men's minds so much that despite what they see, they still head overboard to see the enticing beings who called for them. “This song is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can help me, you are unique.” By stating this quote from Homer’s text, it demonstrates precisely how alluring the sirens can be, because the song isn't a cry for help, the siren is only saying that to lure people
in. Third and finally, the sirens can be seen as antagonists. Siren’s capture and kill people to eat, so they are obviously not good characters. This quote from Homer’s text displays how they can be seen as bad characters rather than good characters, “The song nobody knows because anyone who has heard it is dead, and the others can't remember.” It shows this because they are telling the readers that instead of really crying for help with their songs, they are only luring people in so they can meet their goal to capture and kill. In conclusion, these majestically, mesmerizing creatures of the sea continue to scare people today, and some still may have questions of “What makes sirens so special?” Well, readers need to know the dangers of sirens, especially if planning to sail anywhere. As shown in the text by Homer, readers now know the dangers of sirens. Sirens can lure people in with mesmerizing voices, sirens do many things to coax individuals, and finally readers everywhere can agree that sirens clearly play the antagonist role. Now readers know the risks they take sailing and are further informed of the dangers sirens cause.
Homer utilizes imagery to create the scene in which the Sirens attempt to lure Odysseus. Homer describes the voice of the Sirens to be "ravishing" which presents how powerful the Sirens voice can be. Odysseus is swayed by the voices and urges the crew to let him go to the Sirens, however, the Sirens could not bring Odysseus to them.
The story of Odysseus' encounter with the Sirens and their enchanting but deadly song appears in Greek epic poetry in Homer's Odyssey. The Sirens in the ‘Siren Song’ by Margaret Atwood are portrayed in a variety of ways. The Sirens are lethal,underprivileged and deluding. The Sirens are personated as lethal and menacing. In the Sirens’ song it says “..the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons.”
The Odyssey: Portrayal of Women How does Homer portray women in the epic, The Odyssey? In order to answer this question you must look at woman and goddesses as two separate groups of people who are "people". This is because they are portrayed in two separate ways. You see, a regular woman like Penelope is looked at as beautiful but has.
Lillian Doherty, Siren Songs: Gender, Audiences, and Narrators in the Odyssey (Ann Arbor 1995), esp. chapter 1.
The Sirens are familiar literary characters from Greek mythology; they are most recognized as one of the many perils Odysseus encounters in Homer's Odyssey. As Circe explains to Odysseus before he sets out for home, "You will come first of all to the Sirens, who are enchanters / of all mankind and whoever comes their way…/ They sit in their meadow, but the beach before it is piled with boneheaps / of men now rotted away, and the skins shrivel upon them" (Homer 12.39-50). Odysseus chooses to listen to their sweet song as his boat passes their island, and, were it not that he were bound fast to the mast, would have jumped overboard to seek his death upon their shores. Acc...
The image of seductresses is a recurring motif in The Odyssey. These women are a temptation to Odysseus. They attempt to keep Odysseus from accomplishing his goal: his homecoming. Circe is a bewitching goddess. She entices Odysseus’ crew into her palace with her enchanting voice. However, after she feeds them, she promptly turns them into pigs. Circe also succeeds in enticing Odysseus; he stays with her one year as her lover. It is so long that his crew declares that it is “madness” (326). They say that it is “high time” that Odysseus thinks of his homeland (326). Later on, Odysseus and his crew encounter the sirens. Knowing the danger they pose, Odysseus has all his men’s ears stopped up with wax. However, Odysseus wishes to hear their song; so he asks his crew to tie him to the mast. The song of the sirens is so sweet and enticing. Their “ravishing voices” almost make Odysseus forget his desire to return home (349). His heart “throbbed” to listen longer; he signals for his men to let him go free. The grea...
Odysseus uses his brain to sail past the Sirens without being entranced by their sweet song. A Siren is a bird-woman who bewitches everyone that approaches. The Siren women sing a seductive song. Their song has many powers. As Nugent says “as in the days of the musician Orpheus, music still has power to soothe the savage beast, to ally anxiety, and to connect with the divine through contemplation” (Nugent 45-54). Circe tells Odysseus, “There is no homecoming for the man who draws near them unawares and hears the Siren’s voices” (Homer XII, 40). . Odysseus follows the advice Circe gave him to put beeswax in his men’s ears so they will not be entranced. Odysseus then tells his men “but she instructed me alone to hear their voices…”(XII, 160), when, truthfully, Circe states, “But if you wish to listen yourself, make them bind you hand and foot on board and place you upright by the housing of the mast, with the rope’s ends lashed to the mast itself”(XII, 49). In this way, Odysseus is being selfish only wishes to know the Siren’s sing so he will...
...g of the Sirens and end up as one of the corpses in their “meadow.” The Sirens have the power to “spellbind any man alive” with their “high, thrilling songs” and preventing them from ever making it home. A man lured by the Sirens will never see his wife or “happy children” again. His story will be over, and he will be lost forever. The Greeks rely on their story and legacy to retain their identity and memory after death. The Sirens represent distractions that lure travellers from their journey and decrease or completely remove their determination to return home. When a man stays true to his purpose and avoids any Siren-like distractions, he lives and comes home to a wonderful family. When a man makes himself susceptible to any Siren’s call, be it from an actual Siren or just something tempting enough to sway him from his task, he is destined to fail and be forgotten.
In Homer's Odyssey and Margaret Atwood's "Sirens Song" the Sirens are portrayed as dangerous and devious creatures through the use of tone and point of view.
The poem “Siren Song” is able to depict the sirens using a persuasive and taunting tone. The first six stanzas of the poem have a taunting tone. The siren is explaining to the reader that “anyone who has heard it [the song] is dead, and the others can’t remember.” The sirens are attempting to persuade the reader to do as they say, but at the same time telling them that they will end up dead. This is taunting the reader by telling them the negative things to come. A shift of tone occurs for the seventh stanza. The siren is addressing the reader and saying, “I will tell the secret to you, to you, and only to you… you are unique.” This changes the poem from being taunting to persuasive because it makes it personal. It now becomes about “you,”
...y sirens represent half-women, half-bird creatures who lived on an island. They used to sing in beautiful voices to lure sailors off their course. When Odysseus was sailing by the siren's island, he made the rest of his men plug up their ears and ties him to the mainmast. This way, he got to hear the beautiful sound of their voice without being driven to suicide. In this story the women weeping over Lautaro were compared to the sirens, and some sailors going to tie themselves to the mainmast in an attempt to mimic Odysseus. There is a contrast of these stories with the quotes from the villagers.
Sirens were described as monstrous creatures that lured sailors to death with a beautiful song, most known for their depiction in the Odyssey. Contrary to popular belief and modern works, they were birds in ancient sources. Circe warns Odysseus of them:
the inhospitable manner of the Cyclops, the attractiveness of the Sirens, and the viciousness of
The sirens are a significant factor in Homer’s Epic poem ‘The Odyssey”, they have been reinterpreted throughout the years in many different mediums such as TV, movies, and other works of literature. One of the most notable manifestations is the poem The Sirens Song by Margaret Atwood. Ms. Atwood's portrayal of the mythical creatures is similar to Homer's but at the same time it is quite different.
Greek mythology may have been created thousands of years ago, but the lessons learned from the legends are still pertinent today. While there may not be gods and goddesses walking among mortals, the same conflicts that existed in the myths still exist now. One of the more popular myths in Greek mythology is about the three Sirens. As half-woman, half-bird hybrids, they were ugly creatures who had to overcompensate with the sounds of their voices. Whenever a ship or boat of sailors would pass by the island they lived on, they would sing a hypnotically beautiful song which lured the sailors to their death by jumping into the water and swimming towards the voices. Sailors that swam up to shore were greeted by the deadly Sirens. Greek literature