Feminist Analysis on “Siren Song”

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Gang Liu ENGL 100-991 Tyler Forrest October 23 2012 Feminist Analysis on “Siren Song” The poem “siren song” by Margaret Atwood, describes how woman intelligently take advantage of the negative social perception that man has imposed on woman, by using psychological strategy to attack man’s weakness in order to destroy them. It reflects on the irresistible sexual temptation of man towards woman, hence it reveals the powerful and intelligent characteristics of womanhood to justify the traditional false perception on man are better than woman. First of all, Atwood uses the visual imagery, such as “lead overboard” (5) to indicate the excitement of these sailors when they first approach the scene. In despite of the “beached skulls” (6) lying ahead of them, they go on and hoping to fulfill their sexual desire with this beautiful woman. The poem later confirms the fatal tragedies of these men with “anyone who has heard it is dead, and the others can't remember.”(8-9). Thus, it shows the men have the tendency to be arrogant in front of women, and over estimated their ability to survival. In addition, men have the strong and undefeatable self-concept which leads them to become less defensive with woman simply because women are view as weak and harmless to men. On the other hand, the poem also creates a very dominant and intelligent image for the woman which represents by the song bird, Siren. She understands that men are physically attracted to beautiful woman s the poem describes her as “picturesque and mythical” (15). Moreover, the secret weapon Siren uses to destroy men is to pretend to be very poor with her tears on her face begging for help from the men. She also knows how to promote the man’s pride and self-importance by reinforcing each of her victims are the one and only that has the ability to help her. Nevertheless, the poem demonstrates this secret itself
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