Literary Analysis Of The Wound-Dresser By Walt Whitman

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

In Walt Whitman’s poem, “The Wound Dresser,” the moments expressed throughout take place during the Civil War and are experienced by an old, devoted wound-dresser. The poem begins with the wound dresser having to make a choice on whether he should tell a group of children what he went through “or silently watch the dead” (17). Through the poem, the narrator captures the internal struggles he faces when dealing with a numerous amount of wounded soldiers day by day while at the same time trying to do his job. It is when the narrator is having these inner struggles that the poem distinctively uses punctuation and diction to fully capture unforgotten flashes imbedded in the mind of the narrator.

In the poem “O Captain! My Captain!” Whitman compares the Civil War to a trip. “...our fearful trip is done” (1). The Civil War was one of the nations scariest wars. It was scary to the nation because no matter who won we were losing as a unit. During the war no matter who won the country was losing lives because every single soldier in the war was from the U.S.A. If the south won the nation hurt because they would secede and slavery was still intact, if the north won the nation was not as badly hurt but we still lost countless lives but ended slavery and secession. It could also be compared to a trip because what people thought was going to last a day if that lasted almost 5 years. In conclusion Whitman’s metaphor depicted the Civil War exceptionally.

Walt Whitman listened to the warriors’ battle stories and used them as inspiration for some of his poems. Through his volunteer work, Whitman saw firsthand the debilitating effect the war had on the soldiers’ mental health and their physical injuries, all of which were difficult to treat due to the insufficient amount of supplies and knowledgeable people present to help. All of his work with those who served during the Civil War served as inspiration for Walt Whitman’s collection of wartime poems known as the Drum-Taps. Whitman’s rise to fame is accredited to his poem “O’ Captain, My Captain!” which was published shortly following the assassination of United States president, Abraham Lincoln. However, this traditional poem varied from the majority of his work that was lined passionately with words representing connections between a body and its soul. From the collection of Drum-Taps, the poem “A Sight in Camp in the Daybreak Gray and Grim” describes Whitman arriving at the hospital where he sees the three unattended dead bodies. In each individual stanza, he describes each of the victims.

The poem was written to show that war is a waste of human life as the soldier knows he will die one day as well as the men around him, just some quicker than others. This can be evident in stanza four of the poem: “I know I’ll join them somewhere, one day.” The language used is more casual than formative, this is effective as it shows the personal feelings and thoughts of the soldier during the time

The Wound Dresser by Walt Whitman reveals the way of life for soldiers during war-time by reporting the suffering, the faithfulness, and the compassion. Throughout the poem Whitman talks about the suffering of the soldiers he looks after. Suffering was a major focal point in these soldiers lives and was something they were all use it. Without stopping for even a minute they were battling for their lives. Whitman voices, "Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad, (Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips" (1082). Whitman suggests that the love of their country is so substantial that they are willing to give up their last breath to fight for people's

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

The people in his poem are common folk without individual names, but in his celebratory verse they are all idealized. Each one finds joy in the dignity of his or her labor. In eleven lines of verse, the word "singing" appears eleven times, or twelve if you include the title. The word is used figuratively to reflect happy pride in performance of labor. This is a poem that voices American democracy. Its language is muscular, its pulse vibrant, its mood exultant. We will hear similar tonalities and exuberance in the free verse of Carl Sandburg, who was 14 when Whitman died.

These are the true cold harsh realities of war. It in all its painful and bloody visceral imagery is something that was Whitman's forte. Whitman told the true story of what it was like to be in the middle of war. Although Whitman himself was never in the army, His visual style can sometimes make it seem as though he was right there on the front lines fighting the enemy:

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 the next lines, Whitman makes the assertion that both soldiers vividly know the price of war. He describes it as “hot contention of opposing fronts”, “the long maneuver”, and “red battles with their slaughter”. These observations about battle illustrate that both soldiers have seen the difficulty of the fight and how both sides try to out strategize the other. The red battles of slaughter, illustrate the death toll that those strategies and contentious battles have created.

causes the poem to flow, and thus lightens up the dark and serious issue of war. The lines "But ranged as infantry, And staring face to face, I shot at him as he at me, And killed him in his place." are easy to read; however, their meaning is extremely

The point of the poem was to deliver the horrors of war to the public

“O Captain! My Captain!” is one of the most popular poems ever written by Walt Whitman. Upon the initial reading of this poem, one may perceive the poem to be about a loyal captain who leads his crew on a treacherous, but successful, voyage which ends in devastation. If interpreted literally this is the poem’s only meaning, but for those who look further there is an underlying story behind the words of Whitman. Whitman uses multiple literary elements throughout this poem in order to unmask the story of Abraham Lincoln’s journey and ultimate death as a result of the Civil War and his fight to end slavery.

Title- The song of myself sounds like a poem of self expression, and a gospel of Walt Whitman's’ self beliefs. When his optimistic outlook on life is brought into perspective, one could also conclude that the poem was about his positive and radical outlook on life, because it is a song of himself, his personal expression.