An Analysis of “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking”

In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempts to speak on behalf of the entire American population. He tries to pull the reader into a world of many possibilities. Whitman makes a

Whitman takes the idea of using parts of nature as unique symbols and transfers this idea into humanity. More specifically, Whitman is able to go beyond Emerson's idea of nature as a symbol and make humans symbols. Most obvious is the way that Whitman uses himself as a symbol of all of humanity. He sees the ideas of humanity coming from him and states, "Through me many long dumb voices…Through me forbidden voices,"(Whitman Section 24 Line 12 & 20). He says that he is a "kosmos" - or he is a universe,

In The Meaning of Life, Richard Taylor argues that meaningless lives our lives that consist of a repetitive cycle of struggles that do not give us any purpose. Taylor describes a meaningful life as one that has a purpose, and is creative and unique to that specific person. Also, the meaningful life is lived in a good and just manner. In The Meanings of Lives, Susan Wolf argues lives that are not involved in an activity that brings positive value are meaningless lives. A person that has a meaningless life by the standards of Taylor can still have a life that is going well for them. Their well-being is not dependent on whether they have a meaningful life or not. Wolf believes that meaningfulness is an important factor in a person’s well-being. Well-being is present when a person’s is living a life that is going positive according to themselves. A person who lives a life that is meaningless as a result of being repetitive and pointless can still have a life that is going well for them.

In life, there are many ways you can live, however, the manner in which you live is your choice. In most peoples’ lives, they want to leave this world and say that they were happy and enjoyed every single moment of it. People feel like if they lived a happy life, then that is all that matters. But what if life has more to do than just being happy, what if it was meant for you to change the world or the lives of others? If you changed the life of another person and made them happy, you made a difference. A happy life is a good one, but a meaningful life is fruitful.

Also included in the poem is the image of a young child being embraced by their elders. This shows the gap in life and the aging process that we go through. When we are young we are carefree, but as we age we hold on to the ones we love because of the knowledge that we will one day have to make our departure. Out of this idea of death, Whitman shows that this is a natural part of life and

Whitman wrote broad stanzas and focused on the whole of America as his inspiration. His lines covered a wide range of topics and generated multiple points of view for the reader. He called his life’s work “Leaves of Grass”; stressing the

In “Song of Myself”, grass is the central image surrounding Walt Whitman’s ideology. The idea behind it is grass, in some ways, is very similar to people in society and natures lifecycles. As Whitman was “observing a spear of summer grass” (5), he began to question the human condition. One of Whitman’s first thoughts was that one individual, like a single spear of grass surrounded by more grass, is part of a large community of people. It’s impossible to differentiate from others, for all people are equal despite cultural, religious, or gender differences. Nevertheless, Whitman’s use of symbolism alludes to the idea that grass reflects the thoughts and condition of people in society.

Kurtis Bowen Mrs. Waldvogel American Literature 8 February, 2016 Song of Myself: 46 In section 46 of “Song of Myself” Whitman uses many literary devices to strengthen his theme that every person has his or her own path to follow. Whitman’s use of literary devices includes parallelism, diction, and metaphor. Whitman uses parallelism to strengthen the theme in many places.

In Richard Taylor’s chapter “Meaning of Life”, he concluded that objectively, life is meaningless. He stressed his opinion by arguing that life tends to be a cycle of goals that cumulate to nothing. These goals require sequences of exhausting work and attempt that will continue throughout the rest of life but will have no meaning. As one goal is reached, the next is sought out for, forgetting the one that was just achieved. I do not support Taylor on his objective meaningless of life. Life has a meaning, even if it is just being alive, we were created by God and he has a plan for us. Goals help us become better people and they are important to us. Taylor explained that we can find meaning in our lives when a will is put behind our actions. This means that meaningfulness can be found within the veins of anyone. I agree with Taylor, that our actions should be of interest to us, yet his account fails to show that they will make our lives have a meaning. There is no validation, that a change of the state of mind will cause our lives to achieve meaning.

Everyone has their own understanding on whether they are living a pointless existence or not. People live with their own goals, purposes, opinions, and worldviews, and if they are working on achieving their goals and making their own opinions, they are not living worthless life. Otsu’s life has not been meaningless because he has his own understanding of his faith and beliefs by finding the connection with his mother and God, having an opinion on God and his presence, and following God and Jesus.

Once one determines their purpose, one may achieve fulfilment through living a righteous life. Specifically, by determining ways to benefit and contributing society. Socrates touches on how righteous attributes are beneficial to not only to yourself but to the community as well. “Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” (Plato, n.d.). One may live a fulfilling life through mission work and focusing on the needs of the people around them.

Whitman begins by creating a contradictory image of himself. On one hand he relays an egotistical representation by alluding that he is the center of the universe, "a kosmos, of Manhattan the son," almost a deistic type of character. Whitman also describes himself as not being above any one person, woman or man, an obvious contradiction to his previous representation. His God-like persona is depicted in human terms, physical qualities that all humans possess. Whitman creates this contradiction to show his belief that he is everything, but is only this way because everything is a part of him. He represents himself as part of a whole&emdash;nature, mankind, and the universe are all a part of him. By being everything in nature and nature being a part of him, Whitman has the power to become the voice of nature as a whole. He speaks for nature and mankind when they do not possess the power to do so. Whitman is the voice of all.

Whitman’s view of animals is a result of his dissatisfaction with the lifestyle of humans. My opinion is that the author is trying to employ the tranquility that comes with being one with nature. We have a habit of to making things more difficult than required, whereas the simplicity of animals brings about a certain sensation of relaxation. Animals do not seem worry about the world. They tend to go about their day as nature intended. Our life’s will never be freed from human interference and “law”. Unlike animals, we live in a civilization where people’s opinions, social norms and statuses control us. Discrimination, stereotype, social status has overpowered human’s freedom today and has tortured those who are weaker. So, Whitman wanted to undermine the distinction between the two. We observe that the author uses a lot of repetition which are two verbs “I think “&” I stand”, three times “They do not” and “Not one”. These recurrence gives sense of author’s meaning, more memorable. This means that he by repetition he is insisting and emphasize something. He lists his ideas without any hierarchal organization. This shows that he doesn’t have the traditional style of writing a poem, which involves

Whitman’s affection for the present is exemplified by his punctuation and extensive detail he gives the descriptions. Similar to an explorer seeing new-found land for the first time and later describing it in an epic, long-winded fireside story, Whitman describes the, “large and small steamers in motion, the pilots in their pilot-houses, / The white wake left by the passage, the quick tremulous whirl of the wheels,” with enthusiasm highlighted by the number of commas he uses for breaks rather than periods (41-2). Commas allow him to move from one thought to the other quickly without hesitation or very much delay. Making a shift to, “view the ‘ferry’ itself as a figure of metaphoric transport or language, which alters significantly how we read what is being crossed,” the poetic technique to blend ideas using run-on rather than end-stop lines allows for the smooth “crossing” of ideas as the ferry crosses the river (Cohen 25).

On this verse, we can see how Whitman tries to connect to mind, body, spirit and nature. In “Song of Myself” Whitman attempted to change the meaning of American poetry. I described identity issues that pertain to him, but that the audience was able to identify with. Whitman, opened the door to