In “Siren Song,” Margaret Atwood portrays a strong message about the dangers of giving into the luring deceptions of life. This is done by the use of mythological allusions, the structure, and the syntax within the piece.
The title of the piece, “Siren Song,” is in itself a concise way of drawing out the moral or purpose of the poem. The song of the sirens is a widely known element within Greek mythology and is part of many ancient accounts; for example, Homer’s Odyssey. Fundamentally, the myth is about women, often two or three, who are half birds and half human. They live on an island with a rocky coast, and lure any sailors around into their trap by singing an irresistible melody the men follow with their ships and then crash into the rocks, trapped. In life today, the myth represents the many desires men blindly follow only to crash and be trapped, with very few ways out.
It is interesting that the narrator of the poem is one of the sirens; however, she is unlike the typical siren because she is not content with what she does and is looking for a way out of it. In the piece, her dislike for her position is shown in a somewhat comical manner when she states “I don’t enjoy it here/squatting on this island/looking picturesque and mythical” (lines 13-15), and proceeds to saying “I don’t enjoy singing” (27). The picture created by these descriptions is one of a “girl” squatted on the shore of an island, bored and discontented with her life and daily duties. In addition, the enjambment in the narration turns the poem into a one-person dialogue and puts pauses within sentences where the narrator would have paused to regain her thoughts if it were a monologue in a real life setting. Another important fact is that almost the poem is divided into stanzas that are composed of one periodic sentence and each line a loose sentence that portray the thought process of the narrator while speaking and convey a clear idea only when read as a complete sentence from the start to the period.
By the repetitive use of the word throughout the poem, it is notable that a key element is the song, written six times. The song represents in the story the bait sirens use to attract men to them and, consequently, destroy them; however, it is also a symbol of the many different factors in life that cover their true identity with a veil so attractive that anyone who sees it is drawn into it to his ruin. In Atwood’s work, the narrator tells the reader about the song and also warns about its destructiveness mentioning the “beached skulls” (6) and how “anyone who has heard it is dead” (9), but at the same time, proving its effectiveness. The enjambment of the lines and the unique division of stanzas builds curiosity and anticipation in the mind of the reader, drawing him to the end of the poem where the ambiguity of this “song” would be clarified. In this way, the reader falls prey to the siren’s bait, who well acquainted of all this, states “it is a boring song/but it works every time” (26-27). By saying this, the narrator expresses the simplicity of the song and the stupidity and unawareness of men who are trapped by it “every time.”
The structure of poems, allusions and the title are often factors that are more influential than even the words itself because they set the flow, the rhythm of how the piece is to be read and portrayed. In this way, Margaret Atwood was able to convey the idea of vanities in life drawing people straight to their destruction by the metaphorical comparison to a siren.
