There Was A Child Went Forth Analysis Essay

As a poet, Walt Whitman brings forward his perspective in a descriptive and symbolic manner. Namely, in “There Was a Child Went Forth”, his entire argument is represented figuratively, but he never fails to clearly demonstrate the importance of his symbols. His ideas are simple: as a child grows up, every object they interact with, sight they discern, and human being they encounter on a day-to-day basis shapes the person they will eventually grow up to be. However, without any further knowledge of the poem’s context, the most reasonable assumption one can make about it is that Whitman is writing about himself. By emblematically describing the essential daily life of a child, Walt Whitman demonstrates that every stimulus a child interacts with is of some importance to their development while implementing experiences of his own childhood to make his argument. Walt Whitman efficiently organizes his argument in “There Was a Child Went Forth” into several sections. By discussing “the first object” to begin the poem, he foreshadows his main idea and makes a

Family is a universal theme in humanity; even though not everybody relates to Whitman’s description of his own family, most can find something applicable to their own life. By talking about “affection that will not be gainsay’d, the sense of what is real, the thought if after all it should prove unreal,” Whitman reminisces on the warmth of his childhood by then confirming his doubts that the real word will prove to be as kind. His questioning over “men and women” and “the streets”, along with a full-circle transition back into nature, signify the growth of the child who “went forth every day.” By ending his poem in such a way, Whitman turns his family experiences into a figurative completion of this child’s development and finishes the maturing evolution of the child’s