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
Children of Blood and Bone making it easy for bothering African and Western readers to understand they help souls pass on. They can understand the soul's needs and emotions. Having an intimate connection with the dead, they can bend souls to their will. Reapers can command animations made from earth and the souls of the dead or just souls in the form of shadows. Their powers feed on their rage, but there is also a peaceful use for their magic. Zélie demonstrates the empathy Reapers have for passing souls. They feel what they need and can feel if they are too "weighed down by sin