Siren Song

Margaret Atwood’s poem, “Siren Song” provides an interesting look at the Sirens in Homer’s “Odyssey.” The exerpt from Homer’s poem and Atwood’s poem both have a similar portrayal of the Sirens. They are portrayed as predatory women trying to woo a man in Atwood’s case and Odysseus in Homer’s case. This portrayal of the Sirens is interesting since the stories are told from two points of view.
In the “Odyssey,” Odysseus, the ship captain, tells the story as his ship sails by the island of the Sirens. In “Siren Song,” one of the Sirens sing the song and woos some man to her. These points of view give depth to the myth of Odysseus’s trip past the islands of the Sirens. From Odysseus’s point, he doesn’t want to spend eternity with the Sirens, nor does he want his crew deserting him to go with them; but he does want to hear the song. So he stops his crew’s ears with beeswax, but instead of stopping his up too, he binds himself to the mast wh...