Through an exploration of physical and figurative trauma depicted in the Sedna story and “The Water Will Carry Us Home”, these narrative tales serve as symbols of rebirth and new beginnings for their respective communities. By incorporating trauma into the narrative of transformation, they teach valuable lessons about sacrifice and resilience. The communities specifically learn that through female adversity and sacrifice, there can be beauty and renewal.

Both tie into..

-Importance of both being woman and female-centered

-Sedna was powerful and slaves were not: why that matters, even those with power face unwilling sacrifice

-Power/strength

-Regrowth/Rebirth into something more powerful 

-cultural recognition that demands a retelling,

When reading Edna as a selkie robbed of her pelt, her final act at the conclusion of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening transforms from one of self destruction to, instead, a return to the existence she was always meant to achieve. When Edna is a selkie, the Ocean acts as a means for her, instead of dying a watery death, to escape to something greater than the man-made institutions of the land that kept her bound to her husband’s house—it gifts her the opportunity to transform. This alternative ending circumvents terracentric epistemology by recharacterizing the Ocean as a transformative place that offers new opportunities for existence, rather than the unsurvivable void Western ideas previously believed it to be. Reading The Awakening as a selkie story awakens readers to the limits a terracentric outlook imposes on their imaginations, and begs them to look beyond the constructed boundaries this paradigm enforces.

In Derek Walcott’s poem The Sea is History, the sea serves as more than just a physical entity; it embodies an archive of collective memory, a symbol of both hope and tragedy, and a metaphor for the complex history and identity of the Caribbean people. The poem is an invitation to reconsider conventional narratives of history and to explore the sea as a storage of collective memory and untold stories. Challenging the traditional modes of historical studies that often prioritize written records and official accounts is important to foster a more inclusive and comprehensive understanding of history. 

The Freeform series Siren depicts mermaids as frightening predators. Siren contrasts the town’s celebration and folklore of mermaids as romantic and docile, shown in their Mermaid Days annual event. With the reality of the mermaids off their coast who are, as their leader Ryn shows, animal-like. Mermaids are not the romanticized version the people of Bristol Cove have created for their own fantasies. This show shows mermaids as creatures of nature and the ocean, not creatures of human culture or creativity. This thus serves as a reminder that mermaids are fierce creatures of the ocean, not human entertainment or fantasies. I see that this narrative is evident through the main character Ryn, who, despite her innocent and helpless appearance, is actually strong and violent. As this mermaid is navigating her new pair of legs in episode one, we see how this narrative that Bristol Cove has created about mermaids being weak and docile, is false. Siren highlights how mermaids and the environment/nature are more connected than us humans to mermaids. This show portrays how mermaids are fierce creatures of the Ocean, connected and feared by nature, and our narratives of them are false. This show pushes and takes away the idea of mermaids being forbidden lovers, and shows how they are a part of nature and not the human world for entertainment.