The Silence of the Sirens

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The Silence of the Sirens

The Silence of the Sirens (German: Das Schweigen der Sirenen) is a short story by Franz Kafka. It was published after his death in 1931 in the collection Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer. The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir appeared in 1933 in London, and in 1946 Schocken Books published it in The Great Wall of China: Stories and Reflections.

The story reworks the famous journey of Ulysses (Odysseus) and the Sirens. In the traditional tale, Ulysses has his crew stop their ears with wax and ties himself to the ship’s mast so he can hear the Sirens without steering the ship onto the rocks. Kafka’s version has Ulysses put wax in his own ears and then be tied to the mast.

Kafka argues that the Sirens’ silence can be more dangerous than their singing. The Sirens fall silent when they see the expression of “innocent elation” on Ulysses’s face. An alternative possibility is that Ulysses knew the Sirens were not singing but pretended not to notice to avoid divine punishment for his victory. Kafka notes that human understanding cannot fully grasp this issue.

The story can be read as a comment on the futility of complex plans against hard problems. In his note, Kafka writes: “Proof that inadequate, even childish measures, may serve to rescue one from peril.”