Sandwich Outline: Greek Mythology

The poem “Siren Song,” by Margaret Atwood, uses a popular allusion to convey her message on the relationship between men and women in contemporary society. The speaker in this poem is one of the three Sirens, mythical creatures found in Greek mythology. Sirens are a mix of bird and woman, and are creatures whose songs would hypnotize and charm sailors. Most sailors could not resist the beautiful sound of the Sirens, and their song would lead the them to their island, only to have the sailors devouard and destroyed by the island's rocky coast. This knowledge of the myth illuminates the speaker’s message.

She sings, "You are unique at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time. " The Siren is conniving and cunning, casting off an aura of ambiguity and caution. Sirens are mythological creatures that lure sailors to their death by singing. They make an appearance in both "The Odyssey" and "Siren Song".

When Cassiopeia, Andromeda's mother, boasted that she was more beautiful than the sea nymphs, the Nerieids, the God of the sea punished her. Poseidon's punishment was flooding their kingdom and sending a sea monster along with the flood. Andromeda's parents needed to bring an end to this punishment for the sake of their kingdom. King Cepheus, Andromeda's father, was told by an oracle that the punishment would end if their daughter were sacrificed to the creature. Desperate to end the punishment, Cepheus tied Andromeda up to a rock as a sacrifice to the sea monster.

Gold is also mentioned in other parts of the poem – both sisters have golden hair, but Laura temporarily loses hers when they slowly turn gray after she pays for goblin fruit with one of her curls and loses her moral standards along with it. Goblins on the other hand are shown through variety of views of water, sea and the most aggressive forms of these forces – “a flood”, obstreperous “tides”, alliteration “hoary roaring sea” and “fleet”. Through these symbols Rossetti shows unfamiliarity of goblins and danger that they as an evil presents - the sea unlike the land has always been seen as dangerous, alien, unpredictable or even deadly - but also gives a perfect sense of Goblins’ fast, uncontrolled, variable and unpredictable attack on Lizzie. She is then being shown as “a lily in a flood,” which is very significant – the flower is sometimes considered a synonym for white or soft but also as a symbol of earlier mentioned purity, it can be seen as image of perfection, and an ideal which Lizzie in many ways is. Her strength and willpower is highlighted when she is mention as “a rock of blue-vein'd stone/ Lash'd by tides obstreperously”.

As soon as the pirates turned the ship the winds stopped and the boat filled with grapevines (Greek Mythological Story of Dionysus and Ariadne). The oars turned into snakes and all the grapevines suddenly became Dionysus head (Greek Mythological Story of Dionysus and Ariadne). The pirates were all frightened and all but one jumped out in fear (Greek Mythological Story of Dionysus and Ariadne). The one pirate that didn’t jump out was the same one that didn’t want to sell the boy (Greek Mythological Story of Dionysus and Ariadne). He sailed the ship to Naxos with the pirate named Acoetes (Greek Mythological Story of Dionysus and Ariadne).

Ophelia and Hamlet were in love which in turn made it burdensome for her to forgive him for killing her father. Similarly to Hamlet, Ophelia went “mad” when her father was killed. Specifically, Gertrude said, “Her clothes spread wide, And, mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, As one incapable of her own distress Or like a creature native and endued Unto that element” (Hamlet 4.7.172-175). Ophelia had to be bored up because she couldn’t handle the distress that she was feeling. Ophelia’s madness was easily seen with her actions and appearance.

It was like honey, and her song like a drug. It trapped you, pulling you deeper and deeper into its clutches until you were lost, swept away as easily as foam on the waves. She sat atop a solitary cliff, luring innocent sailors and beggars and princes alike, captivating their helpless mortal bodies before crushing them without a word, feeding off of their very souls without a touch of remorse. And for decades, millennia even, she existed like this, manipulating and killing

Tolkien says that “recovery” is by attaining a “clear view.” In Lud in the Mist the “clear view” is not apparent. An example of how Lud in the Mist expresses a bleak representation of clarity is when talking about the difference between the Fairies and the dead. “The country people, indeed, did not always clearly distinguish between the Fairies and the dead” (Mirrlees, Ch. II, 11). In Lud, the people who had eaten fairy fruit are seen as dead.

Humans cannot create omens; they are prophetic messages from the divine. Even elements that seem human are not- the cult members are not humans, but vampires themselves. They have already been touched by the power (or as they call it “gift”) of the unnamed saint, which has stripped them of their humanity. They even have a divine purpose- to serve as the “pointed nails of justice.” While the origin of zombies is secular and the origin of vampires is religious, the same does not hold true for their neutralization. Warm Bodies has a happy ending; Byzantium has an ambiguous one.

Chopin writes: “The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (Chopin 25). However, Edna’s excitement concerning the ocean soon turns to dread, beginning with when she experiences “ a certain ungovernable dread” and “a quick vision of death” while swimming, leaving her paralyzed in fear for a moment (Chopin 47- 48). Ultimately, Edna returns to the sea one final time at the end of the novel, overcome with a sense of despair as a result of her societal duress. Again, Chopin writes: “The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace” (Chopin 189). Though the description is the exact same, the connotation of the sea from Edna’s perspective has completely shifted.