Sociologically Swimming

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Melusine’s story of her fall at her own hands of destruction really drew my attention, because it reminded me of such a common sociological theory: symbolic interactionism. In her story, her devious behaviors against the king force her mother to punish her to become half serpent every Saturday, in her mind, effectively cursing her from any man ever wanting her. Once she gets married, she shuns him every Saturday, with this consequence that she would isolate him should he ever approach her.

In symbolic interactionism, the idea of labeling develops an association within people’s minds about how these labels hold weight. When juveniles are labelled as criminal from a young age, they internalize this mentality and shift their thinking to continue to act out because they have been deemed by society as these deviant beings, and recognize this as their only possibility for life. Melusina does the same, acting in an attempt to get revenge and even the score, but becomes branded as this evildoer by the curse set. Her inability to drop this act, to admit to her husband the reality of her behavior and her situation seems to reflect how this societal reaction theory acts within her.

His reaction, even when their kids are born as mutants, proves how her mentality surrounding it is an entirely internal thing: “still Raymond’s love for the beauty that ravished both heart and eyes remained unshaken” (Penguin, 86). His love for her in every sense transcended the reality he discovered until it presented real life effects, and one son was burned by the other. It’s then that he lashes out, and insults her the way everyone else had, and the story confirms its impact on her: “Melusina’s anxiety was now verified” (86). This confirmation from the one they love, in spite of the obvious nature to the audience that their avoidance caused it, feeds into this narrative of theirs and their destruction of this facade that they care not about perception of them, that they solely care for manipulation and power.

Her exit with him, her sincerity in grief of having to part with him actualizes that she did feel deeply for him and all of her behavior spiraled from this moment of childhood irrationality. It reflects how deeply our nature as human beings is to protect ourselves, and how our actions truly are all reactions to the perceptions in life, which stem from labels. The labels placed on mermaids as trivial childhood beauties or creatures of deception intended to destroy mankind’s sanctity, the labels we place on individuals as inherently kind or inescapably criminal, even the labels used commercially to lure us in regardless of how harmful, indicate how little we truly recognize how the ever-changing and important nature of everything within society. Our inability to decipher reality from what’s being presented lies at the heart of the tale, as a moral warning utilizing a monster and its nature to prove how our interpretations cannot always be correct.

Week 4: The Siren’s Song

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From our previous discussions, we learned about how mermaids (and aquatic creatures in general) existed in medieval times and will continue to exist in the modern age. In The Penguin Book of Mermaids, there is one creature we have encountered/yet to encounter, called the siren.

The siren is a creature in Greek mythology, usually depicted with a mermaid-like tail but with other appendages like wings or feet. As seen in a portion of Homer’s Odyssey, these creatures sing a seductive song in an attempt to lure sailors to their doom. In the stanza below, we see how their songs affect Odysseus:

“Thus the sweet charmers warbled o’er the main;
My soul takes wing to meet the heavenly strain;
I give the sign, and struggle to be free;
Swift row my mates, and shoot along the sea;
New chains they add, and rapid urge the way,
Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay;
hen scudding swiftly from the dangerous ground,
The deafen’d ear unlock’d, the chains unbound.” (12)

These songs have an ability to captivate (paralyze) sailors into listening to their songs, and it is so powerful that it is near impossible to break from the song alone. The siren attempts to lure Odysseus, a knowledgeable man, by promising “new wisdom.”

What can we make from this? A desire to exploit a man’s strength and render them vulnerable by promising what they seek? To feast on knowledge like how vampires are to blood? Since we are given the information that “sirens and mermaids are both symbols of dangerous femininity,” (9) we can see masculinity being reinforced through methods of resisting temptation: Odysseus’ crew stuffed wax into their ears to prevent themselves from hearing the siren’s song. Odysseus himself had to be bound to the mast so he wouldn’t be physically able to approach the siren. We can infer through the crews actions that we should always be mindful of what we seek, and sometimes it is better to resist these urges of knowing the unknowable.

Knowlege isn’t always what we seek.

Odyssey and the Sirens

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The reading that stood out to me the most this week was in the “The Penguin Book of Mermaids”. The epic poem about Odysseus is famous for its thrilling account of challenges he overcomes throughout his journey, one of them of course, involving his encounter with the Sirens. I was fascinated by the way the Siren was used as a symbol for pleasure in a non-physical way. As stated in the book, “Homer’s sirens sing a song that promises knowledge- a wisdom that bridges worlds-instead of pleasure” (10). I immediately thought about knowledge as temptation and how this has been used throughout time, somehow it seems it’s always been linked to women (ex: Eve). I began to wonder what this says about how we view the two and why they are always intertwined. I think there’s something really odd about this intellectual temptation narrative because It’s not ever explicitly implying that learning is a bad thing. In the reading they literally say, “learn new wisdom from the wise!” (11) maybe not as a form of manipulating him but as an actual invitation to higher knowledge. Reading it from this lens, curiosity then becomes disguised as something negative. It’s important to note that the reason why this matters is because society has a long history of fearing what the knowledge of knowing can do to power structures as it exposes injustice.

Week 4: Deterritorializing is the Key to Harmony

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All humans are separated by land: continents, countries, and regions. We came up with this idea of imaginary lines that separate us from wars fought long before many of us can remember. For example, California declared independence from Mexico in 1846, then later became a U.S. State after signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1948. All of this to say, land separates us, but the oceans connect us. We are so focused on our disconnection from each other because of imaginary lines that we forget that this planet is 70% ocean, with scientists sometimes calling it the interconnected global ocean. Interconnected. And maybe, as Steve Mentz suggests in his “Deterritorializing Preface,” if we deterritorialize ourselves with terrestrial language, we can become interconnected as well, just like the oceans.

Mentz offers the readers seven different terrestrial words with seven different oceanic replacements: field becomes current, ground becomes water, progress becomes flow, state becomes ship, landscape becomes seascape, clarity becomes distortion, and horizon becomes horizon (Mentz xv-xvii). These are just a few examples in which we can detach ourselves from land-bound vocabulary, but I wonder if taking this a step further (or, as Mentz might suggest, deeper) could help humans stop having such polarizing views ion each other. If humans were to deterritorialize themselves, not just through a means of language, but as a means of differentiation across peoples, could we be one step closer to harmony?

Mentz concludes with this bit of wisdom: “The blue humanities name an ocean-infused way to reframe our shared cultural history. Breaking up the Anthropocene means reimagining the anthropogenic signatures of today’s climactic disasters as a dynamic openings as well as catastrophic ruptures” (xviii). I note how Mentz writes, “shared cultural history,” as if every person on this earth shares cultural history with each other. Which, he’s not wrong—there is one thing that connects us all, no matter what imaginary lines we draw: the ocean. So perhaps, if we take a cue from Mentz, we might finally begin to find a sense of harmony between each other.

Sirens – humanity’s curiosity

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When reading ‘Odysseus and the Sirens’, it brings to attention that Sirens and Mermaids were originally separate entities in mythology. While later depictions of mermaids emphasize about their beauty and seductive natures, Sirens were not characterized by the same sexualized traits. Rather it was their powerful songs that define them as noted in the line on page 9, “it is the power of their song and music rather than their appearance that characterizes them across time”. Alongside what the songs held.

In the passage from the poem, the Siren’s song is the main focus, as it can be read Odysseus is curious about the contents.

‘In flowery meads the sportive Sirens play, Touch the soft lyre, and tune the vocal lay; Me, me alone, with fetters firmly bound, The gods allow to hear the dangerous sound. Hear and obey; if freedom I demand, Be every fetter strain’d, be added band to band.’

I believe Sirens may have been a metaphor for the human curiosity that drives some of us to explore the unknown, but also the possible dangers coming with that pursuit. Odysseus wanting his men to restrain him so he could listen to the Siren’s song fully may represent how there must be limits and restraint to avoid being destroyed by it. The song symbolizing new knowledge, which can both enlighten and consume someone if not approached with caution. This could’ve aligned with early sea travel, that the ocean held mysteries able to benefit earlier humans but also held within it dangers that did claim many ships and lives.

Week 4: The poetics of ecological catastrophe

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“Whitman’s pale body, and my own, frolicking in the waves, carry on our skin the guilt and violence of ecological catastrophe. I would like to believe, and sometimes I do believe, that inside the chaos of the surf we can derive succor and some pleasure from the buoyancy that poetry creates. But it is hard not to recall the other creatures who depend upon the ocean, the fish and crabs and microscopic plankton, that will pay a harsher price.(150)”

Every summer, the warnings issued through news sources and splashed in front of empty lifeguard shacks tell beachgoers that a sewage spill has contaminated the water, and thus, swimming is not recommended. And so, like Dickinson, we watch from ashore, the untouchable Silver that beckons us with its waves and dirtied water. At least, this is the issue in the South Bay. Miraculously, the sewage-contaminated waters from the Tijuana River plant do not spread beyond Silver Strand(and occasionally Coronado).

Every year, visitors turn away from the contaminated beaches of the South Bay, and find solace in the pristine white sanded beaches of Solana and La Jolla, conveniently located in some of the most affluent areas of San Diego. 

While Blue Humanities focuses on the poetics of planetary water, I can not in my experience separate my view of the ocean from the politics of land and water. The contamination of the beaches and the surrounding wetlands and waters is a constant feature on my mind. Just as Steve Mentz states, “it is hard not to recall the other creatures who depend upon the ocean, the fish and crabs and microscopic plankton, that will pay a harsher price(150),” I too can not seperate my enjoyment of the beach and ocean, from the total devestation of an unsolved ecological crisis happening a few miles down the coastline. As we turn to our beaches in the summer for pleasure and connection, and the surrounding coastal cities benefit from curating their beaches into tourist economies, I think of the way we continually take advantage of the body of the Ocean, the life and solace it provides us, and with which we interact.

I appreciated the broad experience captured in “poetics”, which Mentz expands through “Aristotle’s claim that poetics combines pleasure and pain,” which “seems especially noteworthy for a blue humanities focus on the watery parts of the world that both allure and threaten human bodies. (139)” Even as we remain grounded in our homes and on land, the ocean reminds us of its mistreatment, and it asks us to pay the price. As the issue at the sewage plant worsens with inattention, it rightfully reminds us that even the gorgeous beaches and tanned cliffsides further up the coast can not escape the eventual devastation of human pollution.

A Contrast in Storytelling Viewpoint – Greeks Vs. The Church

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In the excerpt we read this week from the odyssey, we are introduced to the story of Odysseus and his interactions with Greek sirens. In this particular version, sirens are represented to be creatures of knowledge and fulfillment. The threat of the song – contrasting with what we are usually predisposed to think of when we think of sirens – conveys the sirens as being enlightened ones, willing to share their wisdom with those courageous enough to fall into their trap. In grecian mythology, the seduction of human kind, opposed to a sexual attraction, is that in which humans gain wisdom beyond that of human conceptions. The mind would be allowed to expand beyond the present forces of earth, gaining wisdom transcending possible universes. 

In the traditional English church, sirens and mermaids are presented to be sexual beings, intent to lure men in with sinful and lustful promises, eager to create sin and treachery. The use of mermaids and sirens meant to reflect women as immoral creatures, the cause of men to fail in their religion and faithhood. The church created such emphasis that men must abstain from fraternizing with women, in hopes of curbing their lewd fantasies leading to a state of unrighteousness. 

This comparison between how Sirens were transcribed and developed across different narratives was very stark and intrigued me into further thought. Why in Grecian culture was the thought of knowledge women a threat versus sexualized femininity. In a way, both can be interpreted to mean that a woman in a higher state of power over men would be detrimental to society and manhood. In other ways, we wonder why there was more emphasis on purity inside the church culture compared to that in Greek culture. In my own opinion, I see the English church finding the idea of women being knowledgeable a laughable idea, only being creatures designed to hinder the teachings of the divinity. 
In both backgrounds of storytelling, they become objectified, only to be seen as a hindrance to a man’s success. They are obstacles, attempting to gain unrightful power over a “higher” being – a male. These stories are a direct reflection of these time periods, a place where women did not have an identity outside of her husband, no place to be within her femininity or obtain her own knowledge. Why then is a story such as The Odyssey conceived with such reverie? Why do we continue to idolize works in which a man’s victory is his conquest to outwit a womanly being?

Week 4: Rethinking Horizons of Water as Openings to Look Forward

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In Steve Mentz’s Ocean: Deterritorialzing Preface, he suggests that we reframe our thinking of how we use language to think about culture and environment by exchanging land-associated metaphors for oceanic ones. In the opening paragraph, Mentz challenges, “What happens to ‘grounded’ metaphors when everything solid becomes liquid? Let’s start by swapping out the old terrestrial language for saltwater terms” (xv). By proposing these seven new words, Mentz asks us to change our perspective of these terms through the medium of water.

One striking passage that stuck with me was under his explanation of the word “distortion (formerly clarity)” where he writes, “Water bends light. Water-thinking makes distortion a baseline condition” (xvii). On land, clarity and stability are things that are highly prized by us humans but water, on the other hand, resists that clarity by refracting images and creating a visual distortion. We cannot hope to understand the ocean if we cling to the idea of perfect transparency.

Later, Mentz turns to the word horizon as a metaphor of possibility, “I imagine horizons as sites of transition, like beaches or coastlines, and also as places where perspectives merge… These are places from which new things become visible” (xvii). This description complicates the standard association of the word horizon which is a clean line where the sky meets land or the sea. The horizon is not a rigid boundary but a living and constantly shifting threshold. This way, the horizon invites us to look outward, to be more aware of what comes into view depends on our perspective and the sea itself.

With these metaphor changes in mind, reading Preface this way highlights how blue humanities thinking unsettles the habits of certainty we tend to enjoy. Each of the seven term trains us to value transition, movement, and rationality. Mentz does not simply describe the ocean, but challenges us to use it as a method and urges us be more open minded.

Connection Through Water (All Forms Of Water)

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There is no denying that artificial borders constructed by society divide nations and people both geographically and culturally. However there is one defining aspect that serves as a symbol of unity between people regardless of their background, and that is the Ocean. Water is never truly stable in nature; constantly moving and providing for different forms of life both inside and outside of the sea in terms of habitat and food source. While this is something that may seem obvious to the majority of the population, it is something that caught my attention and after reading “A poetics of planetary water: The blue humanities after John Gillis” By Steve Mentz, it was evident that not too many people legitimately understand the tremendous spiritual and biological impact ALL forms of H2O has on our planet .

We as humans often times enforce limitations on others through walls, barriers, and creating chasms between ourselves due to different viewpoints. It is because of these boundaries that one does not respect or consider each and every aspect of water as referenced by Mentz, “To surge over boundaries and encircle the globe requires us to embrace not only each bay and basin but also comparatively smaller bodies of fresh water, including both solid ice and water vapor” (139). It is only after I read this section that I began to look at all different forms of water (i.e. clouds, glaciers, snow, vapor) and this information opened a new viewpoint for me that I never considered, that of which is the ability to interpret various forms of water differently or just blatantly not being able to certainly define the structure of said forms which Mentz mentions when discussing cloud shapes or lack thereof. Water is abundant in the wild and within ourselves and in places where water is scarce, just the tiny bit of water droplets attracts organisms and although this may seem apparent, people should indeed take notice of the various forms of water as Mentz said, its the main reason we are alive both through connections of the spiritual and the physical.

Water and Other Worlds

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Dion Jones

Prof J. Pressman

ECL 305; Literature and the Environment

14 September 2025

Water and Other Worlds

This weekend’s readings from “The Penguin Book of Mermaids” as well as Steve Mentz’s “Blue Humanities” and “Deterritorializing Preface” focus on other worlds and re-centering our thoughts with that in mind. Current, Water, Flow, Ship, Seascape, distortion, and Horizon each shift language. It alters our perceptions through changing our relationships with/monitoring the relationships our adjusted centers have and the expectations related to them. 

The comparison between terra—the familiar, land centered—and “oceanus”—the “alien”, water centered—connects to ideas of periphery and otherness that have been prevalent in previous readings (Deterritorializing xv). Merfolk—tritons, mermaids—marked new worlds as beings that acted as extensions of alien places for Europeans amidst the ‘age of discovery’.