Mermaids have been used throughout literature as a reflection of ourselves, and how we connect with our environment, whether it is to fear or desire it. In the story of “The Day after the Wedding” Undine by Froque explores the idea of who has the privilege of attaining a soul and who doesn’t. The tale along with other mermaid stories such as The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, have strong tones and themes of Christianity, which entails that humans and their connection to religion somehow makes them more superior than other living beings. There is such a distinctive line between humans and their desire to separate themselves from nature, and religion more specifically Christianity is used to thicken that line, creating a boundary. 

In “The Day after the Wedding” from Undine the story opens up with a light, dreamlike quality. The lovers are entwined in bed, yet there are feelings of distress from Huldbrand as he has experienced a nightmare of spectres disguising themselves as beautiful women. This foreshadowing points towards Uldine and her hybridity, being human-like in her beauty and appearance, but a water spirit by nature. People are enamored by Undine for “the young wife seemed so strange to them yet the same (pg. 102.)” Her other-worldiness is apparent to others, and Undine responds to the people with an overwhelming amount of gratitude. 

Undine is characterized to be a vivacious woman, who is bright, bubbly, and unpredictable. Her emotions flow and are expressed freely similarly to how water moves without restraint. After her marriage with Huldband, importantly a Christian man, she becomes more aware of her unruliness and of social norms. This process of assimilation occurs through Undine’s union with a human man, subduing her original qualities that are representative of natural elements. Strong Christian themes are sprinkled throughout the story, especially when the priest is the first one to greet her “with paternal affection beaming in his face” during the ceremony Undine apologizes to him profusely and “begged him to forgive her for any foolish things she might have said the evening before” asking him to pray for the welfare of her soul (pg. 103). This transaction between the fatherly-like priest and Udine paints her newfound connection with God as one of his new children, atoning for lack of religious connection before. When conforming herself due to the marriage it is shown as she is described to be attentive, quiet and kind throughout the whole day, those who have known her longest expected her capricious spirit to burst through at any moment, but it never came (pg. 103). This transition from her being a free water spirit to becoming an idealized traditional Christian wife is shown as she becomes more bounded to religion. 

Furthermore, religion is especially used to create a boundary between humans and the environment as Udine goes on a long soliloquy expressing her true identity as a spirit. These elemental spirits appear like mortals; they are described as even “more beautiful than human beings”  and even far superior than the human race. Despite being superior  they contain no soul, which is considered to be an evil peculiarity (pg. 105). This idea that these environmental spirits that are well connected to nature not containing a soul, pushes the narrative that humans are superior to the environment because of their involvement with religion, with God. It is not unless an elemental spirit is wedded to a Christian human that they are able to attain a soul, the concept of a soul is to be immortalized for eternity even beyond life on Earth. 

The line drawn by religion between humanity and the environment is thickened when the story continues to unfold. Despite Undine’s assimilation to the human world, marrying a Christian man, subduing her original personality to be more palatable, and going as far as attaining a soul she is still eventually betrayed and cast aside by Huldbrand. Huldbrand ends up falling for Bertalda because of their shared commonality of being human. Even after all of Undine’s efforts of conformity and Christianization, she is monstrified by the people and is accused as a “witch who has intercourse with evil spirits.” The tale is a reflection of religion being used to demonize wildlife despite us being a part of it.

Taking a deeper look at Derek Walcott’s poem “The Sea Is History” and Eric Roorda’s “The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics,” we can understand how history is relative to the perspective from which we view it. Both of these literary pieces expose how Western historical education ignores the submerged history of the slave trade, placing written biblical tales on a higher plane than a physical archive of history, such as the ocean.  

Walcott, The Salve Trade, & ‘Biblical’ History 

Walcott beautifully frames the ocean floor as its own cathedral or church of sorts. Throughout the poem, he uses the Old Testament and biblical references to equate the history of the slave trade with written religious History. At the poem’s climax, he finally confronts the irony and reshapes the Ocean into its own sacred place. Fusing the “natural” world with our perception of a divine and holy place.  

In the very first line, Walcott writes, “Strop on these googles,” calling on his readers to look underwater and be witnesses to the concrete history hidden beneath the surface. This reminded me of a quote from David Helvarg we read earlier this semester, “More is known about the dark side of the moon than is known about the depths of the oceans.” Eurocentric education could utilize technology to uncover more about the slave trade, but it seems that when history reveals human flaws, it is often left buried, or rather, submerged. When Walcott uses phrases like “colonnades of coral” and “gothic windows of sea fans”, the imagery invokes us as readers to blend our religious practices, monuments, and architecture with the natural environment of the sea. Where our churches, propped up by columns and decorated with stained-glass windows, are our archive of time past, and people lost. The sea is the same for the history of the Caribbean slave trade. 

“Crusty grouper, onyx-eyed, blinks, weighted by its jewels, like a bald queen.” Perhaps this fish is a perfect metaphor for a decorated pope or priest. An integral part of this sacred, submerged place. “And these groined caves with barnacles pitted like stone are our cathedrals.” The beauty of the sea and all it can create can be just as impressive and awe-inspiring as a human feat, such as the Notre Dame Cathedral. We count the days it took Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but we do not tally how long it took for the caves to become “groined,” just like the ceiling of a church. And when we do discover information about the archaeological wonders that are sea caves, it is not added to our curriculum and spoon-fed to us. Just as the human church holds loss, suffering, and destruction within its history, so does the “sea church”. The sea also holds places like “Gomorrah”, a city of death and despair, destroyed for its sins. “Bones ground by windmills into marl and cornmeal.” The seafloor is a graveyard for more than just fish; the ocean acts as a cemetery for bodies, stories, and memories. There are bodies and items submerged that may never be discovered, but the story of brutality and cover-ups remains the same. Saltwater may erase physical evidence, but humans are the ones who tried to erase history first. When the education system fails to provide the proper setting and context for history, we are left with no concept of our impact off the land. The Middle Passage is taught as a transportation from one landmark to another, but what happened in between foreshadows all that follows on land. We can dig into the sparse historical accounts of the brutal, long journey, but we know that the voices drowned and all the stories silenced by pure fear are lost to history. If we can see the ocean as a physical archive of history, we could unravel the secrets hidden beneath layers of Eurocentric perspectives and written historical education.

As much as Walcott is calling on us to reframe our perspective of the ocean as a museum, literally, he is also calling us to dive into history itself. To determine the truth that lies beyond the surface of the written page. After all, there is heaps more history beyond the Bible and the moral lessons it holds. “And that was JUST Lamentations, it was not History.” This line carries so much weight and really calls us to question everything we think we understand about history. In this line, we are reminded that just because something is written or material does not make it a fact. In many private or Catholic school curricula, it is common for biblical texts to be used as tools for justification, as if they were scientific. The stories of the Bible are taught in a linear timeline that mimics a history class. And even in the history classes, the history of land and more importantly, “holy land” is presented as the cornerstone of catholic education. As much as these biblical stories are riddled with myth, they do carry truths, just like much of the environmental literature we have discussed in this class. I do believe that stories of sea creatures may be just as accurate as stories about turning water into wine. In reading this poem, I began to see the ancient stories of mermaids, sirens, and other hybrid seafolk as a kind of bible. A way to frame oceanic history through human writing. A more accessible or comprehensible way of understanding the environment that takes up over 70% of our globe. If we read these stories as cautionary tales, as we see in the Old Testament, they can also serve as a tool for teaching history. Noticing the myths and natural environment as historical truths or sites is of utmost importance. 

Roorda, The Ocean as an Archive

Oceanic history is also explored in “The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics,” written by Eric Roorda. Our education system reflects the assumptions that we, as land-bound beings, have attached to the sprawling sea. “We need to take concerted action to avoid the devastating consequences of having ignored the Ocean for too long.” The history of the blue marble we inhabit has been taught to us through a “Terracentrism” perspective that presents the Ocean as a backdrop or viewpoint rather than a dynamic part of history. As Roorda says, “The Ocean can’t be plowed, paved, or shaped in ways the eye is able to discern.” We struggle to understand something to have a past and a future when we cannot physically see it change. It begs the question: Do we have to be completely submerged or completely bled dry before we can finally understand the importance of seeing the sea as ever evolving? 

We have spent so much time seeing the ocean as a liminal space between continents on a map. Charted, lined, and named, the ocean has been conceptualized in simple human ways. But in actuality, “there is only one interconnected global Ocean.” It cannot be tamed or tagged, and it does not care about the arbitrary names we assign to it in relation to our borders. What matters is that, as it moves and flows from one end of the globe to another, it carries the material traces of aquatic and human history.

We are in constant connection either with the ocean itself or, at the very least, with the human works it has ignited. As citizens of a place like San Diego, we interact with the ocean more than most people do. This winter has been especially foggy, and the marine layer has come up into the hills. We walk in the salty air, unaware of the distance traveled by the H20 kissing our cheeks. There is a false binary between human culture/creation and nature. We have always been in connection with the sea, whether we are hurting it, preserving it, using it as an escape, or worshipping it as a spiritual space. 

We tend to detach ourselves from the idea of “nature” or the sea. Yes, the sea is uninhabitable to us, and we can’t even comprehend the sheer size of the Pacific, but that doesn’t mean that we are in any way entirely unattached from it. “Humans interact with [the Ocean] in many ways…They use it as a highway, with 100,000 ships at sea right now. They study it, find inspiration in it, play on it, and fight over it.” The ocean has inspired every single text we have read in this class. It has inspired art and music. Its currents and waves have taken us (and our endless goods) from one place to another. In our history classes, teachers have harped on the land wars, the battlegrounds, and continental migrations. If history is shaped by the places humans fight, the things we fear & exploit, and the territory we have mapped, then the ocean is clearly saturated with history. Still, we have failed to view it as such.  

This blind spot in our curriculum is no accident; it is the result of cultural habits and expectations. For the longest time, we have considered “the world and human activity mainly in the context of the land and events that take place on land.” We are meant to love the land we have built in a Country. To see its change as a material accomplishment and tangible “proof” of our greatness. If land is the only place where things can take shape and hold space, it frames the ocean as a place where nothing happens. Yet, “Islands form and expand”, “Undersea earthquakes churn up epochal tsunamis”, and the “most active volcano in the world pours molten rock into the sea.” These events are historical and bear knowledge and lessons, yet they are more often than not viewed as no more than “natural disasters.” The seas in history have been reduced to stepping stones in land-based conflicts, transportation routes, or paths to undiscovered land. Even marine warfare is considered secondary to land-based battles. “The stylebook spelling of ‘ocean’ diminishes it as a geographic reference. To capitalize Ocean is to challenge the conventional wisdom that the seas can be taken for granted. They cannot.” We often see landmarks or nature on land as holding the history of all that has happened here. The National Parks are a perfect example of that. We are taught how the sequoas in Yosemite hold the history of fires ripping through the California redwoods within their bark. At Arches, we hear about how tiny holes in rock faces became arches that dinosaurs walked through. However, we learn about the ocean as if it doesn’t hold memories in the same way. That it cannot testify or tell, that it cannot carry stories. Just because it cannot present us with viable evidence does not mean that it doesn’t remember. It remembers the shipwrecks, fossils, the bottom trawling, the coral growth, and the bodies dumped there. Its architecture, shaped by millions of years of salt and moisture, is invisible to us and therefore unrecognized. It is not a matter of the ocean being boring; it is a matter of it being ignored. 

  Overall, Derek Walcott’s Poem, “The Sea is History,” and Eric Roorda’s “The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics” urge us to view history as more than what is written. To see the sea as a literal and metaphorical holder of “erased histories.” By illustrating the ocean as both sacred and dismal, Walcott challenges harmful Western narratives that silence a time and place in history. Illuminating the fact that cherry-picked colonial historiography dictates U.S. education, ignores essential stories, and promotes a false collective memory of the slave trade. Roorda explains that “The Ocean is changeable, and it has a history.” He argues that to fix this educational flaw, we have to take matters into our own hands and reframe our understanding of the ocean. To see it as an archive and seek out the fascinating history it holds, because this knowledge gap is not just a scientific issue but an ethical one. If we cannot confront the human history that has taken place in the Ocean or even just care to learn about it, then we will continue to teach an incomplete, complicit, and bland history.

In Eric Roorda “The Ocean Reader: Theory,Culture politics introduction“,David Walcott’s “Introduction People and oceans,” and John Gillis “The Blue Humanities” When the Ocean is argued as a if there is a mention about how does the ocean connect all of us? The way of taking advantage of resources is how the narrative shifts over time due to how we want to stay relevant in the current narrative. In the linguistics Eric Roorda discusses that there is a part where both human authority and redefines words and relationships that show the importance of these roles that play into how we interpret linguistics and how language shifts over time and what people do. While Walcott’s approach in terms of writing is mainly on how do humans events have impacted memory and if it’s made up by humans not the ocean itself and lastly John Gillis modern interpretations of the ocean and how it connects more accurate to people.

In the Eric Paul Roorda “Ocean Reader: Theory, culture politics introduction” where in the text it states a term that defines how humans claims about land as their property. “Terracentrism, a term that is rapidly gaining currency, refers to people’s tendency to consider the world and human activity mainly in the context of the land and events that take place on land” (Eric Roorda,3). Roorda opens with a statement that translates to how humans own the land and define it in their own culture and influence others to identify themselves and it always keep expanding on itself to its best as far it can go. In further research and a another author named Derek Walcott “Introduction: People and Ocean” where it has stated about how humans history is created but questions if it exists. “Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that grey vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History. In the first part of the verse he is asking about if any of those have significance on them that makes a surely questions its value. In the second verse where he question of if it is memorable and stored somewhere. The third and fourth verse has the saying that the sea is stores memories in itself and always stay there as long as possible of its existence. In further evidence of Roorda “The Ocean Reader combines a present-day perspective with a broad approach and consciousness of future implications” (Roorda,3). From this part of the text which means it is not that simple on what is truly more complex and having new perspectives and being aware of others consciousness. In more of a human perspective on its views of the ocean itself. “The era of geographic discovery by European powers, narrated in the third chapter, ‘Seas Connect’, etched water routes between all the Earth’s known lands and laid the foundation for the doctrine of the freedom of the seas”(Walcott,10). Having names that connect to many routes around the world and there is a way of knowing what is today to go to these places. What Roorda explains about how does the oceans have been labeled as Geographic markers. “There is one big ocean, and while its regions have been conceptualized as separate bodies of water and named as different oceans, the fact is they are all connected and seawater travels widely and endlessly across these artificial geographic markers”(Roorda,2). Even if there is a way of connecting and labeling all together is a way of communicating with the world and knowing what it is. What the line Walcott has said from earlier from is the part of “The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History” which correlates with the part of text that connection is everywhere you go and it could be founded on labeled land or the unknown part of the sea. It is a way to see the world as something that has already existed can exist again in another form. While both Roorda and Walcott have different ways of interpreting it and the work Roorda has often mentions that there is a name that connects all the oceans together and what measurements they have, while Walcott has more of the approach of something of what humans do with the ocean throughout human history. In compare and contrast of two different perspectives of the same topic and how it is written.

Gillis another author perspective on how the ocean is about what people think about the ocean in the modern day. “The seascape, once a minor genre in art history focused mainly one ships and harbors, took on new interest when nineteenth century like J. M. W. Turner and Winslow Homer pioneered the representation of light and movement on canvas, “pure seascape, as some critics have called it”(Gills). For most of prehistory where the ocean isn’t really much apart of or even mentioned but its only mention are when it is geographically by a person. This new modern perspective is more of a interpretation of what it means to seen by humans.

On a further note Gillis has mentions how the ocean is more recognized more than ever before and what portrayals in the past that can be discovered. “The emergence of the Blue humanities is a belated recognition of the relationship between modern western culture and the sea” (Gillis). It has gotten more of a scientific reasoning after the nineteenth century and what it is. Also gillis mentions how people were frightened about the sea itself and to avoid it. The main words that people described the ocean was “Ugly” “Unfit” “Repellant” and “Dangerous”.

The beginning to understand of what the Ocean truly is and what discoveries have been found and what people focused on was so different. What might be called the second discovery of the sea beginning in the late eighteenth century and accelerating in the nineteenth century and twentieth centuries, produced a vast expansion of scientific knowledge and humanistic of the sea a three dimensional living thing with a history, geography and a life all on its own”(Gillis). It has shown that this another way of bringing science and humans together that doesn’t make it feel repellent. From the other two authors Walcott and Roorda where mostly geographic of the ocean is more of the leading topic and what humans have with the ocean over the centuries and what it led to being of a some sort way of understanding and not just believing in myths. It doesn’t mean that the myth doesn’t exist it could exist it just not believed by most people.

In Walcott’s perspective about how people viewed the ocean was about how scary it was to ventured out and believing these thing would make people mythical beliefs are justified.

“First, there was the heaving oil,”

“heavy as chaos;”

“then there is light a head of the tunnel”

“the lantern of a caravel,”

“and that was genesis.”

“Then there was the packed cries,”

“the shit, the moaning:”

“Exodus.”

Bone soldered by coral to bone,

mosaics

mantled by the benediction of the shark shadow,

The part when the word “Caravel” was a small ship that European explores have used and the “Genesis” part means that there is a a beginning of a conquest. For Walcott in the next passage is was about how people have horrors

According to Walcott there is a point of view that people wrote stuff about there journey out in to the ocean blue on a boast and it describes a terrible picture on how it went and it justify there beliefs because the fear of those stories that are told are something to believe in and never really try to ventured out in the large vast Oceans and it didn’t really connect them closer and this type of thing pushes people away from understanding what the Ocean truly is. while one the other hand Gillis uses what people have said on what they found about the ocean and it is more of a change in recent times in human history. What both of these authors believe in and having evidence backing them up and what critiques they have from each other is social versus scientific knowledge and what makes it contradict but it can be connected if both sides were to be understood.

Expanding on Roorda part of the argument is that there is a reason why humans are not thinking about Ocean isn’t much of a place to be seen as anything just to pass through to go to other continents and what this says about people is more important than looking into the ways of the Ocean. “They Relentlessly hunt sea creatures, taking 90 million tons of fish from it annually” The meaning behind this of Roorda article is that there is something essential to do instead of looking into it introspectively and what it does it proves how Human nature is the top of the food chain despite having a fear of going exploring the Ocean itself and what mysteries are beyond its surface. A person from Roorda article was woman named Karen Wigen and this quote is that “Maritime scholarship seems to have burst its bounds; across disciplines, the sea is swinging into view” This is a turning point of how unity can be used to acknowledge what can be done to have people learn about the ocean and gain new knowledge. in addition to that point is ” Environmental science, social history, marine ecology and other approaches have combined to transform the field of maritime studies”(Roorda). Education is important tool to be used in a way that the general public to understand what is underneath our Ocean floors. What this is that there is something to look forward to and what it can bring for the future.

Expanding on what Gillis has said about what people still do that hasn’t really changed all that much is that “Ironically, it was when nations turned away from the sea as a place of work that writers and painters turned their full attention to the sea itself”(Gillis). It is a contradiction on what Gillis usually says about how great the Ocean really is and when the most well known people turn away from a opportunity they missed and someone else like person who don’t get much attention from people unless they are very well known especially in the Visual arts where most people don’t take seriously and when the opportunity is reaching out to people such as them to make products or projects based one what they observed from the Ocean. In past years of when people were going on voyages to other lands a man named Thomas Cole was an artist before it mainstream. “Thomas Cole’s Famous 1842 four-part painting The Voyage of life captured popular imagination, with more and more people describing in their lives nautical terms” (Gillis). The rarity of a person such as Thomas Cole was one of those things you don’t really hear much about in the News or people talking about it. It is a type of interpretation that wasn’t common for people who stuck with limiting beliefs about the Ocean. Unlike Gillis is Walcott where in his poem where it was told in a short way of passing the message on to people even if its wrong people will hold on to it like it it is a part of their beliefs.

“Sir, it is locked in them sea-sands”

This would mean that a person would be locked into the sea hands that made them freak out

“out there past the reef’s moiling shelf,”

“where the men -o’-war floated down;”

strop on these goggles, I’ll guide you there myself.”

It seems like command to do something for someone and there is the meaning specific materials in this stanza is sea related and it would indicate that there is element attached to the people who were there at the time.

What Walcott continues to add is about how human experiences with the Ocean is scary and terrifying to go down there and this kind of thing isn’t really new at all and this an interpretation of people in the western world thought about the Ocean and what is ahead of them to avoid to be seen with them at all costs. It really show how much people are not having an irrational fears and some people won’t believe them unless there is physical or witnessed on what happened back there.

From Walcott’s mythical poem, Gillis Modern interpretation of what people think about the Ocean nowadays and Roorda connections with how does the ocean connects with people. There is lots of interrelations that a person can take a way from this and what better than seeing three different perspectives on what people throughout history and with all of these perspectives as something to take and having more knowledge about the ocean is something to be cool and what all three authors have different perspectives but isn’t really wrong or right this is just something fairly new to look forward as a society and what this has brought us was how does the Ocean impacts its impression on us and how we contributed mostly negatively most of the time anyways and it started to change and continue to do so in a positive manner as such.

Work Cited

John Gillis, “The Blue Humanities” (Humanities: The Journal of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Web. 2013)

Eric Paul Roorda, The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics (Duke UP, 2020).
‘Introduction” (pgs. 1-4)
Week 11: The Blue Humanities: Oceanic Thinking, History, & Art Activism

Helen M. Rodzadowski, Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans (Reaktion Books, 2018),
“Introduction: People and Oceans” (pgs. 7-12) PDF

Derek Walcott, “The Sea is History” (1978), poem