Shakespeare's Sonnets: Time and Decay Eventually, time and decay effect everything. Shakespeare uses this theme in many of his sonnets. The sonnets give no hint of an afterlife and express that nothing survives time. Shakespeare used numerous methods to depict this theme including personification, metaphors and similes. Even though Shakespeare says that time destroys everything, he also addresses how to “defeat” time to a degree. One way to “defeat” time is to marry and have children. A person’s offspring will in some measure carry him or her on throughout time. Shakespeare also believed that poetry is immor