The Grim Realities Of Life: Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself

Abstract

Reading Walt Whitman is like opening a big album of life with the ‘self’ as the axis around which the whole world revolves. Whitman is not only the lover and the redeemer of the body and the soul but also of life in all its form. The purpose of this study is to explore how Whitman — the happy-go-round person, who enjoyed life with all, hailing the workers, appreciating the beauties and love of nature, loafing in grass while celebrating his independence — reacted when he came in contact with the miseries of life around him. “Song of Myself” is a miniature portrayal of America of his time. In it, he has managed to depict almost all the aspects of its life.