60 | Themes

Mortality
Throughout the poem, Tagore includes images and symbols that suggest the idea of human frailty. In the beginning of the poem, the children meet on the seashore, but “the restless water is boisterous,” an ominous sign that something bad could happen. The children use “withered leaves,” which represent the dead parts of a tree, since leaves die after they fall from a tree. They use these leaves to “weave their boats,” which they set adrift “on the vast deep.” The deepness of the ocean also suggests mortality, since the ocean’s vastness is permanent...

[The entire page is 687 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

Summary and Analysis – Themes – Characters – And much more...