A Supermarket in California carried the dead into the underworld, across the river Styx. The River Lethe was a different river in the underworld, which caused those who drank its waters to experience complete forgetfulness. The shades of the dead were required to drink the waters of the Lethe in order to forget their earthly life. In "Story Line", Ian Marshall suggests that the poem is written to show the differences in American life depicted by Whitman and that which faces Ginsberg in the 1950s: "It's the distance of a century—with Civil War and the 'triumph' of the Industrial Revolution and Darwinism and Freud
Watcher in the Water attack on the Fellowship, and rupture of the Moria Gate are already present in his initial writings. Since Tolkien never explicitly stated what the creature is, others have felt free to speculate on its identity and origins. In "A Tolkien Bestiary", David Day calls the Watcher a kraken; but implies differences between the kraken of Scandinavian folklore and the Watcher in the Water. Tolkien never called the Watcher a kraken nor described the presence of krakens in Middle-earth. In "The Complete Tolkien Companion", J. E. A. Tyler postulates the Watcher was a cold-drake: "...these dragons rely on their strength and