A Comparison Of Margaret Atwood's Ulysses And The Sirens

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Everything is not what it seems in the world. There are many tricks and lies that may cause bad things to happen. A Siren is a mythical beast that lures in men on the seas with it’s song. If a man hears that song the will be inevitably be lured to their death. In the painting Ulysses and the Sirens, John Williams Waterhouse uses the Sirens attacking Ulysses’ ship to show that the Siren’s song is not what it seems, while in her poem “Siren Song,” Margaret Atwood uses the same scene to show that the sirens song is actually a cry for help, which is the reason men are lured to the beasts.
“Siren Song” was written by Margaret Atwood in 1976. A Siren portrays the fact that not everything is what it seems to be. The Siren’s cry for help is a trick to lure men to their death, which Margaret speaks about in her poem. The poem is written in the point of view of a Siren on an island with a few other Sirens, and the Siren is speaking to the reader. The irony of the poem is that the entire poem is a cry for help and the Siren says that its song is a cry for help. This leads the reader to believe that the entire poem is the Siren’s song. To get her point across, Margaret uses a lot of figurative language, …show more content…

She was born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. She grew up in Quebec, Canada for most of her childhood, but moved around to many different places, some close, some far. Because she moved around a lot, she never really got to see much family. The only family she had was the ones she lived with. Ever since she was young, Margaret had an active imagination, which comes in handy with her writing. When she grew up, she went to many different schools. She went to University of Toronto, Radcliffe College, and Harvard University. After college she went straight to work with writing. She is an author, a poet, and a critic, and is mainly known for her novels. She has written over ten novels in her career and is still writing to this