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Walt WhitmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Regardless of the poem’s historical context surrounding the onset of the Civil War, there are a few forces innate to the poem that the workmen attempt to elude. The first would be labor itself. The individuals in the “bar-room” are clearly identified as “workmen and drivers,” individuals of the lower and working classes (Line 2). The fact that they are gathering “around the stove late” indicates that they are most likely meeting after working hours have ended. They seek one another’s company to help decompress from the day’s hard work and escape their troubles for a little while. Besides eluding the pressures of work, the workmen also seek out one another to shelter from the “winter night” outside (Line 2). Being together with other bodies, regardless of the warmth from the stove, provides its own source of heat - both physical as well as a social and emotional warmth. The speaker and his lover likewise seek out one another’s company for respite from the world outside. While the workmen escape work and the winter, the two lovers use one another’s company to shelter themselves from the “noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest” coming from the other individuals in the bar (Line 6).
By Walt Whitman
America
America
Walt Whitman
A Noiseless Patient Spider
A Noiseless Patient Spider
Walt Whitman
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Are you the new person drawn toward me?
Walt Whitman
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
As I Walk These Broad Majestic Days
Walt Whitman
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
Walt Whitman
For You O Democracy
For You O Democracy
Walt Whitman
Hours Continuing Long
Hours Continuing Long
Walt Whitman
I Hear America Singing
I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman
I Sing the Body Electric
I Sing the Body Electric
Walt Whitman
I Sit and Look Out
I Sit and Look Out
Walt Whitman
Leaves of Grass
Leaves of Grass
Walt Whitman
O Captain! My Captain!
O Captain! My Captain!
Walt Whitman
Song of Myself
Song of Myself
Walt Whitman
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Vigil Strange I Kept on the Field One Night
Walt Whitman
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer
Walt Whitman
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd
Walt Whitman