The Golden Sand Diction

3600 What would you do if you realized your life was soon to end? The speaker in Edgar Allen Poe’s poem is in this precise predicament and discovers the way one ought to live. Throughout the poem, the speaker strives to project the foreboding that he feels onto the reader, “if hope has flown away” and “surf–tormented shore” (line 6 & 13). The text shows the speaker struggle reflecting what has been done in the course of his life and is now fearful for what comes after spending his time the way he did. The speaker has no answers of how to get back the time lost, but rather how to use it. This epiphany strikes the speaker and reader in unison, showing how time causes people to realize their lost potential stating not to waste the little time

The speaker creates connections and gives the message of the poem through allegory in the text; “Grains of the golden sand” is a symbol that depicts sand as time (line 15). This allegory used by the speaker welds links together so the reader understands the value the sand holds to the speaker and information about him. The reader can grasp his age and struggles since he treated life as if it were infinite and shows it most definitely is not. The speaker is trying to hold onto the sands of time “Can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp?... how they creep through my fingers to the deep” illustrated passing like sand in an hourglass as his time and life slips away(line 16-18). In Greek mythology people’s lives were illustrated by a golden string and when cut, the life “attached” to that particular string existence came to a close(“The Sisters of Fate”). The string and sand are both gold, which for generations has been considered immensely valuable just as time is. Poe uses golden sand to show the value that is lost constantly never to return; as in the poem, the sea swallows the golden grains. If someone could not fondle and maintain the last of their values (such as the gold leaving the speakers clutches) they would likely not be able to maintain their composure. Poe drags this realization out into the spotlight for all who can decipher his message saying to value time as the salient possession it is and it is escaping wherever one may