Sirena Summary

Sirena Summary

Like The Little Mermaid, Sirena is a half-human mermaid who along with her sisters live along the ocean floor. However, Sirena isn't a Disney princess. One day she realizes with a start that by luring men to "love" the mermaids, they might be literally stealing their souls by crashing their boats into the steep rocks. She is appalled by her moral enlightenment and retreats to the Isle of Lemnos to live a lonely life as a hermit, without the songs of her beloved sisters.

One day, Philoctetes, a loner of his own kind, finds his way to the island after having been abandoned by his crew and left for dead after a snake bite. Instead of sailing to the war, Philoctetes finds himself stranded on a deserted island alone with Sirena. For a long while, she lurks in the darkness, watching him, debating whether or not she can approach him without doing him some kind of harm.

They fall in love. Sirena realizes that through her sacrifice, she has attained the passage to her own immortality, the love of a good man. They come at a costly price though, and Sirena learns the hard way that even in the context of love, the urge is always to do violence. She struggles with feelings of jealousy, obsession, and manipulation.

But one day, fate has its say, and Philoctetes is removed from her to serve his duty in the Trojan War, to go to his own death perhaps, and Sirena begins to understand that the infinite life she has earned for herself cannot permanently contain a mortal man. She realizes the is doomed to eternal loneliness as he sails off to war.

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