The concept of life has always been a popular topic of analysis. Not only is it something every living person can relate to, but it is something that no one has ever been fully able to understand or describe. Everyone has their own interpretation of what life is, whether it involves religion, deep study or complex literature. Walt Whitman in his poem “From Song of Myself” manages to create a intricate description of human life through his uses of imagery, metaphor and symbolism.
Whitman utilizes a variety of images to display the concept of life to his reader. These images include that of a child, a mother, and an elderly person, all of which are recognizable images people imagine when thinking of life. The first of these images is that of a child, which Whitman presents to the reader from the start of the poem by saying “A child …show more content…
There is another image presented, that of a mother, which helps to build the poem’s association with the ideas of a human life, that is shown in statements like “and here you are the mother’s laps” (913) and “the grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers” (914). This, like the image of a child, has widely accepted association with life since a mother is often known as both the creator of new life and a caretaker of those who are young and just starting their own lives, the children. Another line from the poem, “darker than the colorless beards of old men” (914), plays again into a person’s typical idea of life, specifically the old men that are associated with long life and impending death, like the images of the mother and child. These images are effective in their simplicity because of how easy they are for most people to imagine, since most people have been around children, mothers and old men before, the author does
Whitman utilizes a variety of images to display the concept of life to his reader. These images include that of a child, a mother, and an elderly person, all of which are recognizable images people imagine when thinking of life. The first of these images is that of a child, which Whitman presents to the reader from the start of the poem by saying “A child …show more content…
There is another image presented, that of a mother, which helps to build the poem’s association with the ideas of a human life, that is shown in statements like “and here you are the mother’s laps” (913) and “the grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers” (914). This, like the image of a child, has widely accepted association with life since a mother is often known as both the creator of new life and a caretaker of those who are young and just starting their own lives, the children. Another line from the poem, “darker than the colorless beards of old men” (914), plays again into a person’s typical idea of life, specifically the old men that are associated with long life and impending death, like the images of the mother and child. These images are effective in their simplicity because of how easy they are for most people to imagine, since most people have been around children, mothers and old men before, the author does