Tag Archives: love

The Life of a Siren

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The usage of mermaids in media, specifically in song writing and visuals, emphasizes this allegory between them and women grappling with their relationships, good or bad. In Taylor Swift’s new music video, The Fate of Ophelia, she utilizes mermaid visuals at one point in order to reflect this siren-like beckoning that love often brings, only to be met by betrayal. However, in recognizing the incredibly particular details of her portrayal of them, it creates the antithesis of the narrative that sirens solely act as villains of the a man’s story, existing to lure and deceive; rather, she chooses to recognize them as these elusive, but real and necessary, sentient characters with their own story to represent.

The song itself, from the title alone, reflects deep connections to literature. Taylor reflects on the story of Ophelia from Shakespearean literature, a character who was driven mad  by the men around her and her lack of value to them as a human being to the point that she drowned herself, Within the music video, she creates multiple textually based worlds to continuously relate this concept throughout storytelling of various women. At one minute and fifty-one seconds, four mermaids appear at the bottom of a pirate ship visual, indicating the first of many direct correlations to mermaid literature. 

Their appearance comes in as the lyrics “And if you’d never called for me” (Swift, 1:51-1:54) are sung, sparking this stereotypical connection to sirens. In most stories, their fate lies in luring men from safety, down dark and treacherous paths into the sea and inevitably, to their deaths. Them resting in the water, at the bottom near the plank she’s eventually forced to walk off the ship additionally reinforces this narrative of how mermaid-esque creatures seem to drag them into danger. This translates into women and love, as sirens often represent the parts of women that make them so desirable externally, and simultaneously, their internal softness. Even if it seems willing, surroundings seem to coerce the gentleness of women into giving in, knowing how it only brings ruin to their most vulnerable selves. This association of entrapment to mermaids and sirens, combined with escalating visuals of fighting between the pirates and Swift’s character in that moment, all points to this overwhelming theme that women are doomed in love, as are men lured by sirens. No real joy can find them as long as they are haunted by this narrative, as long as they are always seen this way. 

However, she spins the narrative in order to reflect the reality, that this love she’s referring to, that real and genuine love truly proves the opposite of all of these expectations previously written out for women. The sirens never instigate harm; in fact, they never reach for her at all, or anyone for that matter. It really reflects sirens and their connection to women as defenders, rather than seeking to draw them in the way they do with men. They aim to protect here, to act as this shield from falling into deceitful love once again. At the same time, the lyric continues to say “I might’ve lingered in purgatory”(1:55-1:58), referring to this despondence felt in that post-relationship state. In nearly every telling of sirens, their seeking out of a human being destroys the mortal’s life; the minute they choose to “fall”, they become stuck in this situation and oftentimes, never escape their ultimate fate of death. Referencing this saving, this ability to escape, shifts their alignment to be that of a positive ideal, that sirens existence does not automatically mean everything to follow will crumble. It brings them again as a figure of admiration for women, as a sense of security to their innermost selves. If anything, it juxtaposes typicality of love in the means of a couple; their individual existence, that whole and real love coming from them, saves human beings, namely women, from this unfortunate fate. 

These antitheses only seem to escalate when recognizing even the most minute details of lyric choice. In the previous verse, the same line ends in “I might’ve drowned in the melancholy” (Swift, 0:39-0:42). The usage of drown to a visual completely unrelated to sirens, and linger when they are present furthers this intention to alter the beliefs surrounding siren nature, and thereby love. Keeping them entirely separate from these visuals of death with the water emphasizes them as non-harmful aquatic beings; their existence does not automatically mean death by drowning, rather an eventually peaceful and hopeful resurfacing to ease. Love’s existence, women being engulfed in it does not equate to an immediately crushing demise, but a soft and easy landing into this fate of finding more. 

Imagery that affiliates itself with sirens comes into play once more in her lyricism, as she describes how love wraps around her “like a chain, a crown, a vine, pulling me into the fire” (2:00-2:07). It almost acts as a recall to this association of entrapment and fire’s correlation with eventual destruction. Again though, this wrapping visualizes how these sirens are seen as something enclosing and withholding, when it lies in the eyes of those witnessing and experiencing. This surrounding becomes a positive thing, the way sirens act as this kindness to women by shielding them. In the same sense, this encasing nature that’s referenced in the lyrics becomes actualized in the way that this all-consuming love seems to act as a force-field, as this barrier between happiness and hopelessness. It encompasses as a protection and finalizes the place of sirens as the image of safety, of how love’s all-consuming nature only aids it in its forcefield like state.

While all of the messaging points to this idea of love, of romance, it really fleshes itself out in the overall messaging behind Swift’s entire era. The Life of a Showgirl depicts this need to perform, as a celebrity, as a musician, and above it all, as a woman. Every visual within the music video references this showgirl like quality of womanhood, a constant need to be acting put together and impressing. Sirens and mermaids alike feel like one of the oldest representations of this feminine need to perform, to act in order to have their presence validated and valued. From stories like Undine to shield the ugly, or the Little Mermaid giving herself up entirely, women sacrifice and reshape themselves all for the love they think Swift pushes. This love she refers to really means within us; the woman’s need to wholeheartedly accept who she is, to accept the dirty siren that is so constantly demonized because, at her heart, she is good. This constant rejection of who truly lies underneath the “human” half must end; we must find acceptance of our whole mermaids in order to save ourselves from that treacherous “Fate of Ophelia”. 

Humanity in Femininity

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Melusine’s story reflects so much of life from its introduction: discussions of the fluid nature of opposing concepts, patriarchal structures and their implementation within relationships, and of course, the need to hide deep secrets from those we love in order to protect ourselves. This then spills over into one of the most realistic parts of the story in my opinion: the use of mermaids as a vessel for fate, and how that plays a role in romantic ideology for women.

Emotionally, it’s made incredibly apparent how his betrayal of her boundaries, a concept all too well fated to modern societies and relationships, becomes a point of vulnerability for her. The moment her image of their love seems to unravel, she crumbles: “the fate that was now imposed on her, she felt everything uncertain, herself, her future, as if her heart was breaking, and she fell to the ground as if she were dead” (Lebey, 140). Emphasis on fate, how this was inevitable, begins this narrative of how love stories are considered written as a part of our lives. Life as we know it in the 21st century often means marriage, the nuclear family; it is destined regardless of women’s desires for their future. In Melusine’s, her one explicit desire only lies in being loved, and seen as more than the curse she’s been fated to. She truly represents how destiny plays a role in women’s reality, how escaping the circumstances placed upon them is something they so deeply crave, and that is often found in love in literature. His respect of her boundaries for so long implied reality in these desires finally being fulfilled, in this escape of her unfortunate through the power of a soul-crushing love that’s so often depicted to women, making his betrayal so impactful.

Seeing it from a holistic perspective, it’s apparent how being betrayed by someone she loved shatters her world view beyond love. It resonates deeply with those who’ve experienced that first major love heartbreak, to consume yourself so completely within another human being only to be so earth shatteringly devastated at their disappearance, and faced with the reality that you and this other are not intertwined forever. Mermaids being seen as these powerful and divine creatures that build upon womanhood’s principles, only for Melusina to become so distraught by the loss of a man shows how integrally incorporated love becomes as a part of womanhood. Despite being a figure of supposed vanity, and caught in a moment of “narcissism”, his betrayal wrecks her so deeply, it feels like a death of such a major piece of her. It humanizes her, equating the way so many girls and women react to losing a partner they invest themselves within to her, as well as paints how in a patriarchal society, natural state, hers being a mermaid, ties women to the inevitability of whatever their situation may be.

On André LeBey

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My mom studies traditional folk ballads. She is part of a global community continuing the oral tradition of English/Irish and American music1. The songs she sings have kept certain stories alive for centuries and across continents. Thanks to recorded history we have hundreds of versions of these songs now, and we can see how much they change regionally and over time. While the stories overall reflect the ethos of the cultures they were performed in, the individual tellings always reflect the philosophy of the singer. I see this in real time, as my mom tends to cherry pick for versions or specific verses that empower women and uplift humanity. That’s not an erasure of history– that’s how oral tradition works, and we are seeing it this week in André LeBey’s retelling of Melusine.2 In this short collection of quotes I am not investigating how the story of Melusine reflects the culture it came from, but how this retelling of that story reflects the man who wrote it.

From two chapters of Melusine, I have developed the distinct impression that LeBey loves women. As some of you have been pointing out3, it’s a kind of love that is very hard to extricate from control, possession, domination. The story of Melusine, as Penguin pointed out, hinges on Raymondin’s utter infatuation, to the point of blind trust; I’d argue that this kind of “love” is more universally human- and more beautiful- than a strictly patriarchal reading will reveal.
To LeBey, women are a source of comfort; “townsmen huddled for comfort against their wives,” (11). He presents human men, men capable of fear, men capable of drawing emotional support from companionship.
I appreciated, also, the treatment of legendary female figures. Hildegarde, (12) is described as a “warrior”, saving the life of a man, equal to him, at least in that moment, in dignity, agency, and power. Queen Dido (13) is… mentioned.
LeBey’s description of the female practice of falconry (13) was ennobling as well; although he provides a very clear binary of the sexes (men as ‘big, strong, and majestic’, and women as ‘small, capricious, and fantastic’) he dignifies women as renowned birders. After all, the “simple daughter of a tradesman” could train and tame a famously well-disposed hawk. This also presents a less damning interpretation of the sirens’ songs; to LeBey, women, with their gentle voices and golden brown transfixing eyes are tamers in their own right; it is as respectable for a man to be tamed by a woman as it is for a bird to be tamed by a man.
Another line that struck me as almost worshipful of the institution of womanhood; “Women… told stories… like threads of gold spun from their distaffs… sparkling through the fatigue of their work,” (23)– a refreshing alternative to the demonization of womens’ stories in the promises of Odysseus’s Sirens.

By the time Melusine appears, I am not surprised to see her feelings treated with equal respect to Raymondin’s. On page 25, “it [gives] her pleasure to repeat his name”. And Raymondin’s love is complex. Yes, he above all wanted to possess her (27). But “it was always she, indeed, who led” (29) and he followed her- “he listened to her as if to a living poem”(28).

This collection of lines is only one half of a thesis on LeBey’s Melusine; I would love to explore first his attitude towards women, and then his complex entanglement of love and possession.

To come full circle– from personal, to academic, to personal– I was deeply moved by this text. I believe that the human desire to change that which we love exists outside of patriarchal control of women; I believe it can be seen in the domestication of plants and animals, in the production of art, in the eighteen years we spend raising our children in this country, in the “I can fix him” meme. This is a delicate subject to unravel; I don’t mean to endorse the impulse to control or possess, I think it’s led humanity in dark directions. But I also think that it’s deeply human, and LeBey’s writing– his palpable love for the world– is untangling the edges of this paradox.

  1. She mostly performs unrecorded for other ballad-singers, but she is on Spotify ↩︎
  2. Inspired by our discussion with Steve Mentz and some of my classmates’ posts to bring the personal into the academic 🙂 ↩︎
  3. Adrian on Mermaids and Love ↩︎