Denotative Language In Walt Whitman's A Woman Waits For Me

Improved Essays
When the dust had settled following the grisly Civil War, Americans realized just how uncivil the war actually was. Significant loss of life was never the intention, but it was the result of this bloody war. The fate of a fractured America grieving the loss of hundreds of thousands of men was a cause of concern for all citizens. One of those people pondering America and its future was the poet, Walt Whitman. Through the careful usage of figurative, denotative and connotative language, Walt Whitman’s final stanza in “A Woman Waits for Me” explores American identity following the Civil war and procreation and how it should not merely be a human desire but an American responsibility.
In the wake of the Civil War, America was hurting. The second
…show more content…
Throughout the stanza, he uses adjectives to envision his future country. Descriptors such as “fierce” and “perfect” both have connotations that would evoke the image of a strong, formidable opponent that no one would dare cross. A solid reputation would be important to establishing a safe country which would have undoubtedly been on the forefront of everyone’s mind following the Civil War. The denotative meaning of fierce according to the OED is “proud, eager, and full of desire” while perfect is defined as “supreme moral or spiritual excellence” or “of offspring: fully formed”. The idea of being fully formed and not lacking anything would suggest a nation of people with a strong reputation. Whitman also uses the superlative, “best-beloved” as a way of describing the parts of him and America that should continue on and increase. This superlative is functional in cementing the idea that America is and should always according to Whitman be admired and …show more content…
Whitman “demands perfect men and women out of my love-spendings”. ‘Demand’ is “to call for or require as necessary”(OED). Connotatively, ‘demand’ is reminiscent of an authority figure giving directions that are not up for discussion or negotiation. Four times toward the end of the stanza, ‘shall’ is used. Similar to a demand, the OED describes ‘shall’ as “to owe allegiance to” and recognizes that in Old English ‘shall’ was used to, “express necessity or indicate what is appointed or settled to take place”. “I shall expect” is a phrase Whitman uses in this stanza with ‘expect’ being analogous to demand. In the OED, expect is “to require someone to do something in fulfillment of an obligation”. Whitman seems to say that if you identify as American, you are indebted to the country and therefore must contribute your genetic material to grow the population. Again, the need for procreation is not up for debate, it simply IS what America will have to do to rise up according to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Here McKay compares America’s potency to the blood inside his body which gives him strength to stand against the racism in the country. These lines are very vital in this poem because he expresses that strong racism prevailed in the American…

    • 860 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    This poem is an Elegy in honor of Abraham Lincoln. Walt Whitman wrote this poem a little after Lincoln's assassination. This poem is a big metaphor because it is about a captain -Abraham Lincoln- and his crew -Lincoln's followers- obtaining their sought out prize-winning the civil war- but after getting what they want the captain dies-Lincoln gets assassinated - on their way back to…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    These are the people that represent everything America is, in present day (1860,) with their traits and workmanship. Whitman uses description and diction to illustrate what he sees when he hears America sing, as a blended nation. Whitman uses…

    • 978 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Song of Myself is a poem by Walt Whitman’s. This poem introduces a constant stream of human awareness, where he attempts to dissect death as common and transformative process, which should strike everyone. Walt Whitman was an American artist conceived in 1819 and passed on 26th March 1892. The artist was conceived around the local area of Huntington, Long Island, New York, U.S.In one of the sections from the poem, “Song of Myself” Walt Whitman starts out with a child asking a question, “What is the grass?” Grass is a symbol of life.…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    There were many amazing poets that wrote about the Civil War. During the Civil War many different people wrote poems about the Civil War. The most common person who wrote about the Civil War was Walt Whitman. Whitman’s poems were about realism and trandsadalism.…

    • 868 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Throughout its 239 years of independence, the United States of America has experienced peace, war, and just about everything in between. American culture has evolved significantly since the 18th century, and nothing more effectively represents its centuries of triumphs and tragedies than the literature of American authors. Specifically through short stories, these authors discuss both personal and societal concerns of their times, and simultaneously interweave themes of life, love, and happiness in their works. Three specific authors in American history – Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Theodore Dreiser ¬– act as “moral purifiers” presenting their case through their creative works that, left up to the reader, may have a positive…

    • 1582 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The poem “America” shows the black struggle struggle and how tough it is to be brought up in it. It talks about about standing up, even though life in it is scary and…

    • 770 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When the poet Frances Scott Key saw the American flag gusting in the wind atop Fort McHenry in 1814, he was so in awe of what it represented that he crafted what would eventually become America’s national anthem, The Start Spangled Banner (Smithsonian). His lyrics eloquently illustrated the pride of an evolving nation and the resilience of the American flag, which served as the most exalted symbol of nationalism and civic pride. Two hundred years later, his brief moment of inspiration still provides Americans and potential immigrants in search of the American dream, hope and belief, that the United States is a land where dreams are fulfilled and freedom is everlasting. However, close examination of Key’s lyrics reveals an ironic paradigm shift…

    • 1263 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Claude McKay is a brilliant poet, whose words illustrate the struggles of black communities in America. Some of his most popular poems are about a black man living in America. In fact, “America” is arguably one of his most influential poems, speaking about the duality of the United States through the eyes of a black man. Claude McKay was a skilled poet who used many literary techniques to convey his deep-rooted messages in his poems. He uses specific techniques such as a sonnet structure in “America.”…

    • 1051 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The title of this poem “Who Learns My Lesson Complete” develops from several ideas that Whitman expresses throughout the poem. Whitman goes from topics of time, religion, your own thoughts, and others to make them into one big lesson. As said in line 4, “It is no lesson-- it lets down the bars to a good lesson” whatever you take out of these ideas or the concept sharing of knowledge he is enforcing, that will be your lesson. Although Whitman tries to stir up thoughts for you to learn your lesson, it is you who will be the one to reach the fulfillment of your lesson. However, many may think that although the word is complete, you still may not learn completely everything you know.…

    • 925 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    (line 3) can be viewed as Whitman understanding that every person is equally important. Whitman is basically saying that being yourself is what makes each one of us unique and we should embrace our individualistic…

    • 1359 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As the United States grows in technology and cultures continue to mix, Americans are continuing to only focus on the big news, such as the newest iPad coming out or the violence going on around the country. J.D. Vance writes in his best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, how little people know about his type of people yet how many people are just like them. He discusses how their daily life is, how it changes throughout his childhood to how he is still affected by it in his adult years. Though his book is modern and discusses people who are living in today’s world, the reader can find many similarities to American Literature in the past, even literature as different as poetry. There are many things that came be related in many poems from authors such as Edgar Allan Poe’s “Alone”, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s…

    • 1708 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Poet’s Patriotic Orientation in “Song of Myself” BY Reem Abbas 43380421 The forefather of modern American poetry Walt Whitman writes “Song of Myself” in his great production Leaves of Grass. This poem is one the most enjoyable, controversial, and pioneering poem among twelve other poems. Many poets and critics from the day of its publication until now have debated about it. This influential poem makes Emerson greet Whitman in his great career, which is being a poet and also leads Ezra pound to write a poem called “ A Pact to Whitman “.…

    • 1053 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    E pluribus unum—out of many, one. This is the motto of the United States of America, a nation that prides itself with democratic characteristics such as individual rights, community through patriotism, freedom, and equality for all. However, these concepts are just ideals as individualism and community contradict each other as well as freedom and equality, and historically America has had difficulty balancing these ideals. One of Walt Whitman poems preaches the possibility that these concepts can work together. “Song of Myself” is Whitman’s paean to his ideal of American democracy, an idea which balances, or attempts to balance, freedom with equality, individualism with community, a relentlessly inclusive, or as Whitman puts it, “absorptive”…

    • 1385 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    (Song 30-32). Aside from the obvious and repetitive intention of promoting inquiry Whitman also frames these questions the way that he does in order to advert attention to the brain, allocating this practice to occur, and to leave the reader with an impression of how “proud” he is, even in awe, of this function. A similar physical function that Whitman regards with interest is the seemingly endless possibilities of reproduction. This attribute is brought about as he speaks of the similarities between people then contrasts with differences, asking, “How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries? Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?”…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays