The Fantasy of Seduction in Kafka’s “The Silence of the Sirens”

Kafka’s “The Silence of the Sirens”, published posthumously in 1931, is an audacious re-writing of a famous episode in Homer’s Odysseus. The story shows that Ulysses is unknowingly or wittingly seduced by the silence of the Sirens rather than their songs and they are also seduced by Ulysses’visage. In Homer’s story, Odysseus resists the temptation of the Sirens’ deadly song by having himself tied to the mast of his ship, while his oarsmen, ears blocked with beeswax, sail quickly by without succumbing to the seductive, fatal song of the Sirens. Kafka dramatically subverts the Homeric legend of Odysseus by enacting a shift from sound and hearing to silence and sight. In Kafka’s telling of the story, the Sirens fall silent while Ulysses, indifferent to them and their silence, sails by, his ears blocked, his “great eyes” staring in the distance.Thus, Kafka’s version of the myth brings into question Ulysses’cunning that sets himself apart from others.Kafka points out that “To protect himself from the Sirens Ulysses stopped his ears with wax and had himself bound to the mast of his ship” (272). Maurice Blanchot points out that this privilege of Ulysses over his crew is based on his enjoyment and his ability to resist seduction: