Critical Analysis Of Walt Whitman's Song Of Myself

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“Song of Myself” is written completely in free verse, as it has no consistent poetic form throughout. In my opinion, this could resemble how life really has no set rhythm or length. From what I have read, the image of grass is mentioned several times throughout the poem, and is observed by Whitman in many different lights.
In the first stanza of the poem, Whitman explains what he is doing in that, “I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass” (5). Although one might just think that grass is only grass and there is nothing more, Whitman feels as if there is so much more beneath the surface of this simple object. Whitman also really emphasizes the idea of eternity and that the grass represents something more than life.
In chant 6, Whitman is asked by a child, “what is the grass?” (89), and this simple question suddenly becomes a struggle for Whitman. A very important point that Whitman comes up with is that grass is really just, “the beautiful uncut hair of graves” (101). That is just my favorite line in this chant. I think that is such a great answer and strikes something so great inside me. He is referencing the fact that grass grows from graves and that it is here to remind us of the cycle of life. He says that because grass is everywhere that everyone is connected to it in some way from past experience. It seems like he keeps trying to let us into his head and see how he thinks.
Whitman uses great craft in this poem to make the reader ponder so many different meanings of one simple object. Something like grass is so common that we don’t even realize that it really is everywhere around us. This poem is very meaningful because of its originality and the images and ideas really stick with the reader b...

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...ard to believe in God when you are in a situation like this. It would be hard to have faith when you are treated like a nobody, and you feel like you have no other choice but to stay there and work because it is how you have to provide for yourself and your family. I would hate to think that there was nothing out there. To me, God is the stone that I have built my world around. I can talk to him no matter how my day has gone.
After reading this story, it gave me a better understanding of the work conditions of this era. It opened my eyes to the fact that the working conditions of the factories, the workers health, and age did not matter to the employers. It even makes me wonder if working conditions are still like this. I know as working class Americans, we don't think that people would work like this in the United States, but I'm sure that it happens every day.

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