Essay Choosing Sides in Walt Whitmans Song of Myself

â€Å"Song of Myself† is an attempt by Walt Whitman to become the â€Å"American poet† as described by Ralph Waldo Emerson; he attempts to be â€Å"[T]he sayer, the namer, and [representative] of beauty† (Emerson 1182). Whitman wants to speak to and for America. Whitman does not explicitly choose sides on the slavery debate that was raging at the time of his writing, but he does express the equality of all people, regardless of gender and race in â€Å"Song of Myself†. While Whitman’s writing can be read as neutral but â€Å"Song of Myself† is, in reality, very anti-slavery and pro-equality. In â€Å"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†¦show more content†¦The suggestions of equality between all people are not blatant and are not abundant in â€Å"Song of Myself† but they do exist, showing that Whitman was not as neutral as most readers are led to believe. He believed in equality. Whitman uses the grass as a metaphor to imply that all people are connected. Whitman uses the grass to represent things he cannot explicitly name. People are all different, individual, but the blades function together. Everyone is needed to make up the grass; one blade cannot stand-alone. The grass encompasses all of America, regardless of race, gender, or religion. Grass grows everywhere there is water and touches everyone. This is one of the ways Whitman seeks to appeal to everyone through language. Whitman also seems to be much more anti-slaver than pro-slavery. While he never says explicitly that black people are equal to white people, he does imply it several times. In section six when he is speaking about grass he says, â€Å"Growing among black folks as among white† (Whitman 2214). Following the metaphor that the blades of grass are all people, functioning together, this implies that black people were equals in the eyes of Whitman. They too, were just blades of grass, individual parts of the whole American population, growing everywhere they could. Whitman alsoShow MoreRelatedWalts Whitmans Vision of America in Leaves of Grass17685 Words   |  71 PagesWalt Whitman’s vision of America in Leaves of Grass Valentine†©Abbet†© TRAVAIL†©DE†©MATURITE†© †© Sous†©la†©direction†©d’Anne†©Roland†Wurzburger†© Gymnase†©du†©Bugnon,†©Lausanne†© 2012†©  «I have sung the body and the soul, war and peace have I sung, and the songs of life and death, And the songs of birth, and shown that there are many births. I have offerd my style to every one, I have journeyd with confident step; While my pleasure is yet at the full I whisper So long! » Walt Whitman, So Long !, Deathbed editionRead MoreLupe Fiasco’s Modern Voice Essay1514 Words   |  7 Pagesagainst the degrading world society and does so by influencing the public through their appeal of music. He rejects and contrasts from the negative influences of the world and uses his music to contradict those who degrade our society. Born in the west side of Chicago Illinois, Fiasco grew up opposing what most other kids in his time regarded as their inspiration. Unlike the others he grew up around, Fiasco took interest in literature spending most of his time reading books and comics. Inspired by artistRead MoreThe Hidden Messages Of Water, Japanese Scientist, Dr. Masaru Emoto, Uses High Speed Photography1462 Words   |  6 Pagesportraits in his short stories became my favorite way to escape reality. Spending my childhood in rural Michigan, my adolescence in the suburbs of Chicago and the islands of Hawaii, then moving to Puerto Rico before settling in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, as well as speaking basic French, I have adapted not only to these dialects but also all of these ways of interpreting the world. This synthesis has left me something of a linguistic polygamist, oscillating between slang while speaking in a mannerRead MoreANALIZ TEXT INTERPRETATION AND ANALYSIS28843 Words   |  116 Pagesactually meant. Finally, dialect, stress and word choice all provide important clues to character: they may reflect the character’s origin, occupation or social class. 5. CHARACTERIZATION THROUGH ACTION. Character and action are often regarded as two sides of the same coin. To establish character on the basis of action, it is necessary to scrutinize the several events of the plot for what they seem to reveal about the characters, about their unconscious emotional and psychological states as well as