As the narrator’s love life comes to an end, the death of it ultimately takes a heavy toll in his mind, leading to the “death” of the narrator’s hope and stability. The “surf-tormented shore” can also be a metaphor for time. The sea slowly but continuously pounds away at the visible existence of the shore, paralleling to the notion that time keeps going on but the end of the shore marks “the end of time.” The narrator stands “amid the roar”, again marking that he is surrounded by the chaos of life and cannot do anything to steer his surroundings to his own liking, which may have lead to the daydream as a form of dissociation. The choice of the word “standing,” a very inactive verb, employs how little the narrator can do to manipulate his own life from there
As the narrator’s love life comes to an end, the death of it ultimately takes a heavy toll in his mind, leading to the “death” of the narrator’s hope and stability. The “surf-tormented shore” can also be a metaphor for time. The sea slowly but continuously pounds away at the visible existence of the shore, paralleling to the notion that time keeps going on but the end of the shore marks “the end of time.” The narrator stands “amid the roar”, again marking that he is surrounded by the chaos of life and cannot do anything to steer his surroundings to his own liking, which may have lead to the daydream as a form of dissociation. The choice of the word “standing,” a very inactive verb, employs how little the narrator can do to manipulate his own life from there