The Civil war influenced many of Walt Whitman’s works. Whitman uses themes such as admiration, suffering, death, and warfare to enhance the message behind his poems. The effective use of these themes gives depth to Whitman’s poems, allowing him to paint a picture. Whitman’s use of themes allow him to tell a deep message while seizing the reader’s attention.
“O Captain! My Captain!” has two prominent themes, admiration and suffering. America admired Abraham Lincoln for his leadership during the civil war, whit expresses this bully writing, “Rise up - for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills/For you bouquets of ribbon’d wreaths- for you the shores a-crowding,/ For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;” (ln. 10-12). …show more content…
“Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul,)/While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,/The only son is dead” (ln. 29-31) is the major shift in the poem. At this point in the poem the reader learns that the son has died and the mother is grief stricken, “She with thin form presently drest in black,/By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,” (ln. 33-34). The theme, death, is expressed by the mother’s sorrow. The whole family is affected by the son’s death. The mother stops eating and sleeping once her son has died. She can not live now that her son is no longer walking the earth. Eventually the mother will die out of sadness and the death will keep spreading. This theme also ties into the message that Walt Whitman was trying to express. War will always cause death, and death will always cause sadness and grief to …show more content…
Beat! Drums!” the themes are warfare and death. The Civil war affected everyone in America. Whitman writes, “Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!…So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow” (ln. 1, 7) to symbolize how loud war is to the citizens. Normal people are not on the battlefield, but the warfare spreads into their lives too. It is louder than anything they have to deal with in their lives. The everyday person would still see signs of war everywhere; in the newspapers, through gossip, in propaganda. The shrillness of the bugles blowing symbolizes how hurtful it is to the average American's
“O Captain! My Captain!” has two prominent themes, admiration and suffering. America admired Abraham Lincoln for his leadership during the civil war, whit expresses this bully writing, “Rise up - for you the flag is flung-for you the bugle trills/For you bouquets of ribbon’d wreaths- for you the shores a-crowding,/ For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;” (ln. 10-12). …show more content…
“Alas poor boy, he will never be better, (nor may-be needs to be better, that brave and simple soul,)/While they stand at home at the door he is dead already,/The only son is dead” (ln. 29-31) is the major shift in the poem. At this point in the poem the reader learns that the son has died and the mother is grief stricken, “She with thin form presently drest in black,/By day her meals untouch’d, then at night fitfully sleeping, often waking,” (ln. 33-34). The theme, death, is expressed by the mother’s sorrow. The whole family is affected by the son’s death. The mother stops eating and sleeping once her son has died. She can not live now that her son is no longer walking the earth. Eventually the mother will die out of sadness and the death will keep spreading. This theme also ties into the message that Walt Whitman was trying to express. War will always cause death, and death will always cause sadness and grief to …show more content…
Beat! Drums!” the themes are warfare and death. The Civil war affected everyone in America. Whitman writes, “Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow!…So fierce you whirr and pound you drums—so shrill you bugles blow” (ln. 1, 7) to symbolize how loud war is to the citizens. Normal people are not on the battlefield, but the warfare spreads into their lives too. It is louder than anything they have to deal with in their lives. The everyday person would still see signs of war everywhere; in the newspapers, through gossip, in propaganda. The shrillness of the bugles blowing symbolizes how hurtful it is to the average American's