As I read Aganju and Yemaja we are told that the children were named those names for the reason that they were “union of heaven and earth” and their best describe the narrator as a union in which they represent the balance that both heaven and earth scale on.while Yemaja the childrens serves as a warning to the reader to not embrace feminity or masculinty for they could suffer consqueneces such as Yemaja in which her own son Orugan embraced traditional masculinity and ravaged his own mother and in the reverse Yemaja in which she was to intimate with her feminity and felt that her unloyalty would cause friction within her relationship.The story layers the meaning behind their names as different planes and tries to keep each of their domains seperate but seem to intrude into one another.The author seemed to layer the story such as their names by describing each of their origins and then interminglining their stories such as Aganju having to be helped by his father as well as Yemaja being unwilling raped by his own son. This is further developed by the narration in which they explain that Yemaja split herself into two and bore the creation of many other minor gods,but leaves the reader to believe that they are own seperate entities.That is not the case though and in reality the reasoning the narrator wants us to come up with is that Yemaja was in reality was a combination of all these minor gods and felt that by dividing herself up it would divide her feminity and masculinity.

The passage “Aganju and Yemaja” from The Penguin Book of Mermaids frames a Yoruba environmental ethic: nature is a family of land, water, and air, and when that bond is violated, all life is shaken. Caring for the environment means honoring those kin.

Aganju stands for land, “an uninhabited tract of country, wilderness, plain, or forest.” Yemaja is “Mother of fish,” the goddess of streams who “presides over ordeals by water.” Their son Orungan means “In the height of the sky.” The text says the union of Obatala and Odudua “represents Land and Water,” so this family maps the basic elements, earth, water, and air, as one household with duties and limits.

The break shows the cost of crossing those limits. After Orungan’s assault, “two streams of water gushed from her breasts,” forming a lagoon, and from Yemaja’s body come the systems that sustain life: rivers (Oshun, Oya, Oba), the sea (Olokun), mountains (Oke), agriculture (Orisha Oko), even “the sun” and “the moon.” Ife, the city of “distention,” is built to remember this rupture. The message is direct: damage to water spreads everywhere. When water is harmed, land, sky, food, health, and time itself are thrown off balance.

This myth is also a guide for action. If water can judge, she “presides over ordeals by water,” then water demands accountability. Treat rivers, wetlands, and lagoons as kin, not resources to use up. Protect headwaters and floodplains. Farm in ways that respect Orisha Oko. Guard mountains as Oke, not as mines to strip. Keep public spaces like Oju-Aganju as places of shared memory. In short: honor Yemaja and her descendants in policy and practice, because our well-being depends on theirs.

A traditional story often focuses on a main character who learns to evolve through self-discovery or character development, and the mermaid is a great example of this. In Yu-Gi-Oh!, the trading card game, the gameplay focuses on how well each card synergizes with another in order to defeat an opponent, but a key component is a card’s artwork and how that artwork reflects the deck’s strategy. My favorite deck I recently decided to play is Tearlaments and their heavily lore-driven, expansive narrative.

The core story of the deck is that a mysterious being from another world named Visas Starfrost is searching across the universe for fragments of his emotions and memories. We come to find, through other decks such as Tearlaments, that these fragments have become their own personalities that emphasize the darker nature Visas Starfrost has forgotten, while each planet’s inhabitants represent different aspects of the protagonist’s emotions. The Tearlaments, being mermaids, inhabit the primeval planet Perlereino and are defending their world from the invaders known as Kashtira, who have come to enslave the inhabitants and capitalize on their resources. While the deck’s artwork builds a story of identity, the deck’s strategy encapsulates the metaphor of transformation.

The main strategy is to send Tearlaments monsters from the player’s Main Deck to the Graveyard in order to trigger their effects there. These effects shuffle other Tearlaments monsters back into the deck to summon even more powerful monsters from the Extra Deck, which can then shuffle the opponent’s monsters back into their deck. The name “Tearlaments” is a portmanteau of “tear,” “tiara,” “lament,” and “firmament.” Each idea appears in different aspects of the game. A player may feel devastated after losing a monster they invested resources into, and when the Tearlaments themselves feel lament in being sent to the Graveyard, they are reborn as stronger monsters with powerful effects. This strategy reflects much of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid, in which the unnamed mermaid laments not being with the prince and sacrifices her own desires, ultimately transforming into a wind spirit with far greater power than she had as a mermaid.

While the artwork of the deck shows how Visas Starfrost must come to terms with his emotions, it also shows that each of his counterparts is not evil but angry that he had cast away these aspects of himself and is now trying to reclaim them. The Tearlaments, depicted as mermaids, are shown wearing lockets symbolizing their enslavement, and the actions taken against them represent the sadness or sorrow invoked in their name. Through encountering these creatures and fighting alongside them to defeat his counterpart Tearlaments Reinoheart, Visas Starfrost comes to realize that accepting sadness and transforming it becomes a powerful asset, similar to the Tearlaments’ strategy of transforming themselves into stronger monsters. Like mermaids, who traditionally transform themselves into humans or transform the world around them, individuals must determine whether their own transformations are beneficial or harmful to themselves and to those around them.

The card game designs the Tearlaments’ strategy to encapsulate transformation, identity, and emotional acceptance. By connecting these themes to The Little Mermaid, the Tearlaments show how sorrow, loss, and self-reflection can become a person’s source of strength rather than weakness. Visas Starfrost’s journey to reclaim his emotions reflects the Tearlaments’ ability to recover from destruction, reinforcing the idea that growth often requires confronting the parts of ourselves we try to reject. Through its intricate story and strategic depth, the deck becomes more than just an endless line of new cards and instead becomes a narrative about embracing change and discovering power in the very emotions that shape who we are.

In “The Sea Is History” by Derek Walcott, the poet portrays the ocean as an archive of cultural memory by referencing Biblical and historical knowledge, thus revealing how man-made monuments and stories are temporary but can be preserved within the ocean which carries an enduring record of human history.

“Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?” Walcott opens with a challenge. He asks where the remnants of man-made creations can be found once they are long gone, to which the reply is, “The sea / has locked them up. The sea is History,” thus establishing the foundation of the poem where the sea is portrayed as a vessel containing historical knowledge and depth. 

Walcott continues by chronologically describing Old Testament books of the Bible. He first describes Genesis, then Exodus, then the Song of Solomon, then Lamentations. By shifting from book to book specifically in chronological order, the work shifts from a mere poem to more of a story with a sequence of events, similar to human history. Walcott is further emphasizing the representation of the ocean as a continuous timeline containing such history and depth. For example, in his representation of Exodus, Walcott writes, “Bone soldered by coral to bone, / mosaics / mantles by the benediction of the shark’s shadow.” This could be referring to the famous Exodus story of Moses delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. In doing so, he parts the Red Sea just in time for the Israelites to safely escape, but the waves come crashing down on the Egyptians in their wake, thus drowning their pursuers. The imagery of coral and bone being soldered together imply a connection between elements of the ocean and the land/humans. In this case, the bones and bodies of the Egyptians lie among the coral and water, forever preserved by the blessing, or “benediction of the shark’s shadow,” in the sea. In Walcott’s representation of the Song of Solomon, a book about marriage and poetic love, he flips the romantic narrative with descriptions of “white cowries clustered like manacles / on the drowned women, / and those were the ivory bracelets / of the Song of Solomon.” The poet’s mention of drowned women chained with manacles could be referring to the slave trade where many slaves died in transportation overseas, once again associating human and ocean elements by comparing cowries to the chains. The typically beautiful and romantic images of “white cowries” and “ivory bracelets” represent bondage, definitely not poetic love, in this poem. By flipping the theme of the Song of Solomon, Walcott is contrasting Biblical stories with historical reality, or idealistic love versus slavery. The ocean preserves the bodies, and therefore real history. The poet thus paints the ocean as not only a mere vessel that preserves stories, but also harsh truth, no matter how buried. After chronologically describing Lamentations, Walcott shifts his poem to the New Testament with the lines, “the spires /  lancing the side of God / as His son set, and that was the New Testament.” Biblically, the New Testament begins with the emergence of Jesus Christ, who was crucified. The imagery of spires piercing the “side of God” is reminiscent of how when Jesus was on the cross, Roman soldiers pierced his side with spears to see if he had died yet. The images of God’s son setting can have a double meaning. It can represent Jesus, the son, dying on the cross, but also the sun literally setting, thus bringing about a new day in history. The thought of development and an unfolding story can also reference how the ocean changes as well, just as much as the land, as the seafloor is constantly shifting and the ocean itself changes with the shifting in orientation of the continents over time. Walcott characterizes these sequence of events as “waves’ progress,” once again connecting the sea to human history and stories. However, with due progress, all waves break eventually, and the poet begins describing the book of Revelations. 

Now describing the last book of the New Testament, the poet writes almost nonsensical lines inclusive of “synod of flies,” “bullfrog bellowing for a vote,” and “caterpillars of judges.” It is clear that Walcott is describing Revelations because the book details a sequence of events that precede the end of history and the world. These include swarms, like of flies, and plagues, like of frogs, as well as increasingly chaotic and disintegrating structures of government and authority. Walcott is providing commentary on human systems where politicians beg for votes and synods can be rotted with corrupt figures, while associating humans with nature closely and relevantly, which is consistent with Revelation’s prophecies. Walcott also describes how these events only happened after “each rock broke into its own nation,” insinuating the beginning of a new chapter of history, however chaotic. Thus, the ending line of “History, really beginning,” has a double meaning. The creation of new nations insinuates the beginning of new histories and stories, however the descriptions of Revelations and the end of the world insinuates a conclusion to history. This conflict can be explained by the line, “with their sea pools, there was the sound / like a rumour without any echo.” The sea is denouncing the prophecies of Revelations as nothing more than a rumour with no actual impact, which again is Walcott painting the ocean as holding the truth. What was Biblically and traditionally perceived as the end of history is actually the beginning, hence “History, really beginning.”

Ultimately, “The Sea is History” by Derek Walcott uses heavy Biblical allusions and connections between humans and nature in order to further the purpose of depicting the ocean as a vessel preserving truth and history. 

In poem, “the Sea is History” by Derek Walcott, I found it very interesting how the poet uses so much Biblical imagery to describe the extensive history and depths of the ocean. He goes through the books chronologically, mentioning “Genesis” then “Exodus” then the “Song of Solomon” then “Lamantations” (all Old Testament books), before mentioning the “New Testament”. To me, this represents how the poet is trying to encapsulate the ocean as historical and ongoing, existing and changing throughout even the most ancient of times and even into more recent times. Putting the books in chronological order also emphasizes the representation of the ocean as on a continuous timeline. Walcott’s other mentions of Biblical imagery like Babylon and the Ark of the Covenant can also depict the ocean as the source and location of significant historical and Biblical events, solidifying the ocean’s significant and important part it played in culturally-defining moments. For example, the lines, “of the tidal wave swallowing Port Royal, / and that was Jonah, / but where is your Renaissance?” references the story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale, another significant moment in history that happened within the ocean. The mention of the Renaissance also has some religious and artistic references as that was a time of great cultural development in history. The thought of development and evolution can also reference how the ocean changes as well, just as much as the land, as the seafloor is constantly shifting and the ocean shapes themselves changed with the change in orientation of the continents over time. The ocean has also been a symbolic tool used in many Renaissance arts and cultural stories and traditions. The ending line of “History, really beginning,” has a double meaning to me. I think it means that the ocean has been such a significant part of history as it has been here since the beginning, and many people believe that a lot of species and life evolved from the ocean (hence, it being the beginning of creation as well), but it can also define the difference between old and new (similar to old and new testament referenced earlier). History implies old, but beginning implies new. The ocean is both old and new at the same time because of its extensive past, but also its potential for creation (both culturally and in life/organisms).