Analysis Of The Poem Of Joys By Walt Whitman

Happiness is subjective. Every person has a different set of things that bring joy to people’s lives. There are obvious correlations that are common. Many find happiness from their loved ones, food, money, and passions. There are some people who aren’t made truly happy by any of these things mentioned. The chemical release of dopamine in the brain can be triggered by nearly anything depending on the person. The question then becomes, what brings people the ecstasy of living? Walt Whitman is a well renowned poet to this day. In his poem, Poem of Joys, he mentions different examples of people and what brings those people joy. Whitman suggests that joy is found in different forms of weather such as rain drops or sunshine. He explains that …show more content…
The fifth chapter of the book focuses heavily on this. The section discusses how in the nineties, psychologists believed that material possessions did not play a role in people’s happiness. Since this time, that has been disproven (Haidt). You often hear that money cannot buy happiness. This simply is not true in most cases. For many people living in poverty, money could solve a large portion of their issues. The anxiety of living in a high stress poverty situation can cause anyone to be unhappy. Having money and resources to not be burdened by this would improve people’s overall state of joy. This one example suggests that for some, money can buy happiness. The sixth chapter speaks about the different types of love (Haidt). Love is a common source of happiness that was also mentioned by The Compassionate Instinct and Hector and the Search for Happiness. The book gives the example of a sick child. The mother watches as her child suffers and can do nothing to help him (Haidt). This hurts the mother intensely because of the love she feels toward her son. If her son had been healthy and growing up happily, this happiness would’ve reflected onto the mother. She would have felt joy because her son felt