The Hardships Of War In Walt Whitman's Beat ! O Captain !

One of the most credited poets throughout the Civil War period was Walt Whitman, who wrote about the hardships of war in his work. In particular, two of his poems are not only heavily intertwined based on topic, but in structure and used literary techniques. “Beat! Beat! Drums!” and “O Captain! O Captain!” both share many similar qualities among figurative, sound and structural devices that Whitman uses to help further enhance the theme of how negatively war can impact individuals.

At first glance, one can observe how orderly the structure in both poems are. Both works are split up into three separate stanzas, each poem using different tones to bring out the hardships of war. “Beat! Beat! Drums!” has a war marching tone to it, as it is rhythmic and adds to the sounds of war in addition to the sounds of beating drums and blowing
bugles, seen in “Beat!
beat! drums! — blow! bugles! blow!” This particular line is tied with anaphora, as it appears at the beginning of each stanza in the poem itself, further enforcing the wartime setting. The exclamation marks that are used in the poem’s title are symbolic of how soldiers will blindly follow each other and act on decisions without thinking, which is shown in the line “Make no parley — stop for no expostulation, mind not the timid — mind not the weeper or prayer...”. “O Captain! My Captain!” possesses a few of the same structural traits that the former poem does. For example, “O Captain! My Captain!” is also written in three separate stanzas and has an anaphoric title, but the stanzas of this poem are structured in a juxtaposed manner. The first two stanzas switch off from a positive song-like tone to a negative and shocked view about the war. This shows the mood changing
with tone, as we are taken from joyous moments like “The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting” to graphic and gruesome moments such as “But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, where on the deck my Captain lies, fallen cold and dead.” The last line of the poem, “fallen cold and dead” is repeated at the end of each stanza, establishing the fact that that while the war is now over and won, the narrator’s captain is now gone, and there is no turning back.

Both “Beat! Beat! Drums!” and “O Captain! My Captain!” utilize different sounds and imagery to aid in establishing mood. The onomatopoeia in “Beat! Beat! Drums!” consists of the beating of the drums “Beat! beat! drums!” and the loud shrieking of the bugles “blow! bugles! blow!”. In addition, there are also sounds of the “scholar studying” and “the solemn church”. Studying and church tend to be both quiet things, but Whitman shows that these pleasantries that were once calm and fond pastimes are now interrupted by war. These pastimes are interrupted by the constant sounds of drums and bugles playing, meant to symbolize the fact that most activities people used to enjoy has now been put to a halt by the interruptions of war. In “O Captain! My Captain!”, the onomatopoeia used changes depending on the positive or negative mood of the particular stanza. For the first halves of the first two stanzas, their positive moods showcase sounds such as “the bells I hear” and “the people all exulting”, celebrating the end of the bloodshed and terror. The second halves of the first two stanzas and the entire third stanza all possess a negative mood, consisting of graphic imagery, shown with the “bleeding drops of red” from the deceased captain, but also rather imagery that brings forth feelings of denial, seen with “It is some dream that on the deck, you’ve fallen cold and dead.” While the war has been won, the undeniable despair that is evoked from the narrator is apparent.

In the end, Whitman’s outlook on war is immensely pessimistic. Each poem structure consists of three stanzas that generally evokes a negative mood, and each uses uplifting pastimes as imagery to further showcase the idea that happy times were considered to be over. Whitman believes that the cost of war is not worth it, as it leaves behind a terrible impact on society in the end.