Comparing Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale and “Siren Song”

“Siren Song”

This is the one song everyone
would like to learn: the song
that is irresistible:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.
Shall I tell you the secret
and if I do, will you get me
out of this bird suit?
I don’t enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs,
I don’t enjoy singing
this trio, fatal and valuable.

I will tell the secret to you,
to you, only to you.
Come closer. This song

is a cry for help: Help me!
Only you, only you can,
you are unique

at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time.


In both “Siren Song” and A Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood explores the coded nature of language. In the poem’s context, the song of the Sirens is the poem itself—one would think that a Siren’s song would be overwhelmingly seductive, but in fact, it is merely a ploy to get the reader (or listener) to pity this estranged Siren, the Siren that doesn’t want to be a Siren anymore, or so she says; in fact, she is really just manipulating the reader with her words by saying that the readers themselves are the only ones who can save her from her misery. It is all a trick. The language is entirely deceitful until the very end when the poem closes with “it is a boring song but it works every time.” In A Handmaid’s Tale, Offred and the other oppressed women have to imply alternative meanings to words in order to conceal their support of the rebellion. When they say things to each other like, “it’s a lovely May day,” what they really mean is, “m’aidez” which means “help me” in French. Underneath that decoding is another decoding—“m’aidez” or “May day” are used in veiled conversation to gently ask the person listening if they believe in the spirit of the rebellion. When Offred finds a Latin phrase carved in her closet, she sees it as an embodiment of quiet rebellion, much like her own. The meaning of the phrase itself is not important—it is the fact that something is written down where it shouldn’t be by someone it probably shouldn’t have been written down by. It is interesting that the phrase “help me” comes up in both pieces, as their meanings are similar: in the poem, “help me!” is a lie; a trick. It is coded in the sense that the reader believes that in order to help, they must get the Siren off the island. Instead, the Siren means “help me!” in terms of herself—“help me” by buying into my song so I can kill you, essentially.

Looking at the second stanza in “Siren Song,” I’ve found significant meaning in relation to A Handmaid’s Tale:

the song that forces men
to leap overboard in squadrons
even though they see beached skulls

Offred, and all of the other oppressed women, are literally forced to live under the totalitarian regime of Gilead, even though they can see how wrong it is and how much it puts their lives and welfare in danger. Like the Siren song, the women of Gilead do not have a choice. When the song, or the Gilead rule, is put before them, they can’t escape. This may be why Offred was so passive and inactive in terms of making any efforts to escape—any attempt was more likely than not, entirely futile.

the song nobody knows
because anyone who had heard it
is dead, and the others can’t remember.

In this context, the “song” is freedom. Anyone from the pre-Gilead world that knew what freedom felt like has either died or were brainwashed to forget what freedom was. Offred had a lot of trouble remembering pieces of her past that happened only a few years before she was put under Gilead rule.

The main difference between the two texts by Atwood is that in the poem, the women have all of the power. They manipulate and lie to the men, make them feel important—“ Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique”—much like the position of power that men have in Gilead: the women are manipulated and lied to, are told that they are, or really that their bodies are, a crucial component of Gilead and that playing their part in it is necessary.