Walt Whitman's O Me ! O Life

At some point in life everyone, as depressing as it may seem, seems to question their existence and why they are even living. It’s a common thing to wonder about. Through the use of form, point of views, tone, figures of speech, and images, Walt Whitman in “O Me! O Life” depicts how the purpose of life, is to live it; no matter how bad the world around us seems to be. Walt Whitman’s poem is a reflection of himself and the world he lives in. Whitman is confused on the purpose of the struggles in his life. He can’t come to the right idea about why he’s living. He questions his purpose in life and the emptiness of the world’s impact on life. Whitman questions some events he sees over and over again in his life. He questions the purpose of his
In the first stanza of the poem, Whitman establishes a sorrowful and despairing tone. He uses words like, “faithless” (2), “foolish” (2), “plodding” (5), and “empty and useless” (6). The diction and tone helps the reader see that the speaker hasn’t had a happy and fruitful experience living, and is struggling to see the purpose of all his sorrow and pain. It puts a depressing mood, on the poem. However, the tone shifts in the second stanza to a more renewing, and optimistic tone. The tone shift helps to establish the speaker’s optimistic view of life. Whitman uses many figures of speech to establish his theme of the purpose of life. The most evident figure of speech is the use of anaphora. The uses of the word “of” in the beginning of every line in the first stanza creates an “pull-in” effect on the reader. The reader, in a way, is drawn to reflect and think as of they were in the mind of the speaker. At the end of the poem, in the last two lines, Whitman uses a metaphor to compare life to a “powerful play” (10). The comparison of life to a play uplifts the speaker’s view on life. The speaker now seems to look at life with pure joy and with great