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a.This image represents femininity, temptation, and death through an artistic yet descriptive lens. The overall tone of this image evokes a feeling of fear–death. You can see the decaying male bodies lying underneath these women looking up to the sky, to the gods, this can lead to the assumption that these tempting sirens rein power over the male sailors. On the other hand, the women are surrounded by the dead soldier’s wealth, gold, silver, and expensive materials. Meaning, that women are tempting, so tempting they are in fact deadly. From an outside perspective, this image provokes an overall feeling of threat, that your journey is almost at an end. On the other hand, you can see the man restricting himself, and his men pushing him back, his posture only relays feelings of desperation. That there is nothing else in this world this man wants than these sirens– temptation.
b.Through my own research of sirens lies in As Odysseus leaves Kirke’s island, Kirke informs Odysseus of the dangers of the sea that he will encounter on his way home, specifically warning him of the sirens. The sirens live around Mycenae, Sparta, Plyos. Perfect southern peninsula to lure sailors into their deaths. Temptation is associated with women- so this juxtaposition of the siren being the tempest includes the power women hold over men. Sirens are female presenting who use their songs to lure sailors to their deaths, Odysessus avoids this by strapping himself to the front of the ship. Through the gory descriptions of the sailors’ rotting corpses. “Around about them lie great heaps of men, flesh rotting from their bones, their skin all shriveled up.” (302 45-47) This juxtaposition of temptation and fate is seen clearly through the decisions made by the sailing crew. They know the death that awaits them but they lack any sort of control over the sirens.
c.A sentence with importance is “…pregnant with death.” (304- 91) This works in this passage since it emphasizes how sirens carry death with them at all times. Use of the term ‘pregnant’ usually inflicts the thoughts of motherhood, child, and growth, but in juxtaposition, with the sirens, the term represents a constant consensus of death. “…pregnant with death.” the description given to the sirens represents their lack of human relation. In better terms, what is being conveyed through this comparison is that the sirens carry, create, and live with death at all times. Leading to a better understanding that sirens revolve around death. The imagery of this comparison creates this tone of death. Typically, the idea of pregnancy refers to positive emotions and aspects of life for human women, but this juxtaposition here refers to women carrying death with them.
d.The representational strategies used through this image provoke ideas to the viewer, that you would not notice automatically. The aesthetic of the image revokes a timeline of Renaissance; and rebirth with new ideas presented, more specifically, this image uses women in order to attract the audience, and their victims within the image. These representational strategies are effective by representing these sirens are temptation, they are naked, facing toward the sky can be seen as godlike.