56 pages • 1 hour read
Bethany C. MorrowA Song Below Water
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Sirens and Siren Songs
Though sirens are mistakenly seen as conniving and manipulative beings who use their songs to their advantage (especially since they can Compel others), they aren’t villains. Their myths and associated prejudices have made people mistrust them unfairly, which also relates to the themes of Racism and Social Justice. Since sirens are exclusively Black women, they experience double prejudice for their mythological identity and racial identity, which Tavia struggles with often. Effie recognizes the unjustness toward sirenness when her history class talks about freedom of speech and siren speak. Her eloko classmate, Isabella, points out statistics about sirens: [I]t just sounds like we’re comparing hurt feelings to actual danger and suffering. [...] The sirens that were outed could’ve been killed, some of them were” (56). Even those outside of the siren community, such as Isabella, understand that sirens/Black women have been suppressed for years.
When sirens like Camilla Fox and Tavia later own their voices, their songs become symbols of power and force for radical change. Tavia explains the two main siren songs, Appeal and Compel: “If Compel bends someone to a siren’s will, Appeal bends the siren to someone else’s, even though she’s the one in control” (46). Compel may be the most powerful siren song, as it can force others to follow a siren’s will. Like Camilla, Tavia only uses Compel in moments of great need, such as when she Compels Effie to stone Naema for releasing her live video of their secret identities (as a siren and a gorgon). Camilla uses Compel so people will actually listen to her, her speeches being used to fight for life-saving change in the Black community. With people listening, society as a whole takes meaningful steps toward ending racism, prejudice, and social injustices. Later, Tavia learns Awaken from her grandmother, a song that awakens people to their true form or nature. Effie’s identity is a mystery in the novel, but Tavia’s Awaken reveals her as a gorgon. Tavia knows her songs are powerful, as she can use them without a person’s consent, so she later apologizes to Effie, whom she forced to act. Effie forgives her for using the song, knowing it awakened her true form.
Water
Connected to sirens and Effie’s persona as Euphemia the Mer, water is a recurring symbol of potential, safety, and transformation. Firstly, water is Effie’s solace, her safe space where she feels free. She swims daily, sometimes twice a day, because she adores the water and wants to practice her mermaid skills. She’s proud to play a mermaid at the Renaissance Faire: “The audience loved to watch me in the Mer Cove. [...] I was defying my introvert tendencies and smiling widely, learning to drape my body [...] like the water really was [my] lifeline” (37). Effie feels most at home and at peace in the water, which reinforces her suspicions of being a mermaid. It is later revealed that the water mirage Effie often sees signals her gorgon father Jacoby’s presence. She also views this water mirage in the Renaissance Faire tent, where Jacoby lives in his alternate world. Through water, Effie is transported to Jacoby’s marshy wetland, in which there is also a magical river where Tavia sees Gramma’s reflection again. Without the transportive water, Effie wouldn’t have discovered her father or understood her transformation into a gorgon. Her character arc isn’t complete until she discovers her identity, and the water mirage leads her to the truth.
Tavia follows the “indigo water” (which represents potential and change) that creeps into her vision to find Gramma’s spirit, as she’s a fellow siren. Early on, she tries to contact Gramma through water: “The story goes that sirens originated by the water, that once we used our calls to damn seamen, and that when we die, our voices return to the sea” (1). Similar to Effie’s water mirage, Tavia’s vision recedes to indigo, and she’s mentally transported to various locations through water, where she can talk to Gramma’s spirit in the waves. Water represents Tavia’s potential to learn from Gramma and own her siren identity—eventually learning the powerful song Awaken in the process.
Dampening Collars
The newly invented, call-dampening collars are a symbol of silence, restraint, and oppression. The so-called “protective” collars literally silence sirens, clamping around their necks to block any siren calls from their vocal cords. This measure was invented to specifically persecute sirens, as police have no other measures of stopping their magic. When Priam’s father, a police officer, visits Tavia’s home to speak with her parents, Effie sees through his advice: “As heinous as it is, he thinks he’s offering safety and solutions. Even though no other supernatural would get that offer, because cops have no other equipment specially made to control them” (121). From the police’s perspective, they’re acting out of safety in using collars, but they’re abusing sirens’ rights to speak and live freely. Even though some sirens, like Lexi from her reality show, willingly wear a collar to be viewed as harmless, Tavia and allies to sirens think the collars are inhumane. In fact, when Tavia witnesses her idol Camilla Fox being collared at a protest, she is traumatized: “No one knows the way her eyes bulge and her mouth stretches while dark armor crisscrosses her body. I’m reaching for her when Gargy carries me away, and even though I know she sees me, Camilla Fox is silenced” (169). Tavia can’t forget the image of the peaceful Camilla, who was only looking to fight for Black rights, equal rights, being forced into silence. This explains why Tavia and Effie are outraged when Naema shows up to their prom with a collar, despite being an eloko. Regardless of her reasoning, Naema is framed as insensitive for the cavalier way she refers to the collar and speaks to the two girls (knowing firsthand how stressed Tavia has been about her own sirenness).
