Thesis: Whitman’s use of visual imagery, anaphora, and personification depicts his overarching message of isolation through the use of the spider and the soul as metaphors in his poem, “A Noiseless Patient Spider.”
Topic Sentence: Whitman’s use of visual imagery throughout his poem demonstrates the metaphor of a spider and the soul representing isolation similar to the human race. In the first line of the poem, Whitman establishes an image of a hardworking and quiet spider, which outlays the big picture for the rest of the poem. The spider is depicted as weaving a web quietly, secluded from the rest of his environment, which right away set off the mood and theme of isolation. In the third line of the poem when he says, “Mark'd how to explore …show more content…
At first the environment is open, but through his use of alliteration it the slow annunciation gives the feel of it slowly becoming emptied. He then moves on to describe “filaments” being reached out. The filaments paint an image of a web, where the “filament” is made in order to describe the spider’s way of reaching out. The alliteration used in this line leaves us with the picture of the “filament.” The repeating word keeps lingering on the image of the spider reaching out. In the second stanza, Whitman introduces us to the image of a soul. In line 6, he personifies the soul by calling it by its name. This apostrophe paints the soul as representing a person that stands “lonesome.” In line 8, Whitman gives a human feel to the soul and uses descriptive phrases like “surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space.” (2.2) This depicts the soul as a person and like the spiders is in vast environment, but is “detached” from its surroundings. The picture of the “ocean of space” shows an image of the perpetuity that loneliness causes as space goes on forever. Lastly, Whitman sums it with the words “gossamer flinging, ” which feels as a person is crying for help and reaching out to its surrounding. This image relates back to the one he paints with
Topic Sentence: Whitman’s use of visual imagery throughout his poem demonstrates the metaphor of a spider and the soul representing isolation similar to the human race. In the first line of the poem, Whitman establishes an image of a hardworking and quiet spider, which outlays the big picture for the rest of the poem. The spider is depicted as weaving a web quietly, secluded from the rest of his environment, which right away set off the mood and theme of isolation. In the third line of the poem when he says, “Mark'd how to explore …show more content…
At first the environment is open, but through his use of alliteration it the slow annunciation gives the feel of it slowly becoming emptied. He then moves on to describe “filaments” being reached out. The filaments paint an image of a web, where the “filament” is made in order to describe the spider’s way of reaching out. The alliteration used in this line leaves us with the picture of the “filament.” The repeating word keeps lingering on the image of the spider reaching out. In the second stanza, Whitman introduces us to the image of a soul. In line 6, he personifies the soul by calling it by its name. This apostrophe paints the soul as representing a person that stands “lonesome.” In line 8, Whitman gives a human feel to the soul and uses descriptive phrases like “surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space.” (2.2) This depicts the soul as a person and like the spiders is in vast environment, but is “detached” from its surroundings. The picture of the “ocean of space” shows an image of the perpetuity that loneliness causes as space goes on forever. Lastly, Whitman sums it with the words “gossamer flinging, ” which feels as a person is crying for help and reaching out to its surrounding. This image relates back to the one he paints with