The poem is an excellent contradiction of belief in existence. The world we perceive as truth is what we experience. But does this mean that it truly exists or is it merely an experience? It may be that we are living a dream and that what seems real is not real indeed. We are living in a false sense unaware that the world is a reality.
The phrase “Nobody is asleep” has been repeated vigorously to indicate that we are helpless in living the false dream of existence. Iguanas represent death and the poem says that those who cannot dream according to the poem will be eaten up by the Iguanas. Iguanas are nothing but nature which takes the form of death to put an end to everything.
Just like life, death can also not be called a reality. It’s a cycle of life and death that repeats itself. All life forms die in this process and are again re-born. Reincarnation is a life that begins as a next stage to death. This cycle of life and harmony in nature is very complex. Various visual images used by the poem emphasize the cruelty of life. The deadly, ugly nature of life has been depicted by creating visual scenes likes – butterflies rise from the dead, we fall down the stairs to eat the moist earth, we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of dead etc. One cannot escape and must endure the hardships and pain that come across in life. They are inseparable from the life.
Death is equally torturous as there is no peace even when a person dies. A corpse moaning in the graveyard, a buried boy crying so much that dogs had to be called to make him quiet are some acoustic images to intensify the pain that death brings. Even death is not quiet; it is also gruesome and does not bring any peace to the soul.
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Further emphasis has been laid on the fact that we never dream or sleep where sleep is symbolic of death. Thus the cycle of life and death continues until we find the true meaning to our being. The image of buttery reincarnating is an attempt to create the picture of reliving in the mind of the reader.
We ought to be very careful in our life which suggests that life demands seriousness. We may have to sacrifice a lot in order to attain the real happiness. The relationships that exist between the humans are such that we share the burden of death with everyone who is related to us. We not only experience this pain in isolation, but as a collective pain for and with everyone. Because no one ever dies, thus we are always burdened with the fear of death.
To conclude, life and the society we live in is compared to a theatre. In a theatre where if we get bored playing our and open the trapdoors of the stage, we are exposed to lying goblets, poison and the skulls. Similarly if we open the doors of life or in other words get to understand the reality of life, life is completely insignificant and meaningless.