What doed “twin destinies” mean in shellys poem “lift not the painted veil?
In ‘Lift not the Painted Veil’ Shelley is warning people not to look for a meaning beyond life, because there isn’t one. The life we have is all there is. The ‘twin destinies’ are Fear and Hope; hope of something better (such as Heaven) balanced by a fear of something worse (such as Hell). Shelley says that if you try to find a meaning beyond life (either through religious belief, or through suicide) you may think that you will find a Heaven or a Hell, but in fact all you will discover is a ‘chasm, sightless and drear’. There is nothing beyond life, says Shelley. His wife, Mary Shelley, has the same message in her novel Frankenstein. Shelley himself always lived for the moment: he experimented with drugs, group sex, and paedophilia. He died young and still pretty.
