Comparing Glass Half Empty People And As To You Death By Walt Whitman

Second Draft There are “glass half empty” people and “glass half full people.” Walt Whitman is definitely a glass half full person, and also the kind of person who would enjoy drinking that glass in the middle of a meadow. Whitman believed that death is not such an awful experience and used nature in his poems to represent a type of rebirth. He believed that nature is the essence of simplicity and beauty. Whitman was not a farmer, or a person who worked on the land, but rather had a deep-rooted love for America and all of its splendor. Two poems of his that show this are “A child said, What is the grass?” and “And as to you Death.” Both of these poems have imagery of nature that convey underlying meanings about death. The first poem, “A

Whitman saw nature as the essence of beauty, and believed that everything natural is beautiful. In “A child said, What is the grass?” he is trying to decide what grass is, and mentions that it could be “The handkerchief of the Lord./ A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,/ Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we/ may see and remark, and say Whose?”(lines 7-10). He is depicting the grass as something heavenly, like an item that the Lord designed and place on the earth to remind us of Him. This suggests that Whitman viewed nature as something divine. Romantics are typically inspired by nature and Whitman’s poetry shows that he finds understanding in the world of nature. He also related nature to cycles of life. In “A child said, What is the grass?” the narrator says that the grass also seems like “the beautiful uncut hair of graves” (line 19) This line shows that Whitman liked the theme that there is growth after death. He is saying that the grass is growing out of those buried in the ground, therefore it is like a regeneration of the deceased. Similarly, the lines “I ascend from the moon, I ascend from the night,/ I perceive that the ghastly glimmer is noonday sunbeams reflected” (lines 18-19) in “And as to you Death” show this theme of rebirth because he is using nature to discuss how we come from darkness and are born into light, and that the only reason we

Whitman has symbolism in nearly all of his poems. In “A child said, What is the grass?” the narrator first guesses that grass is “the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful/green stuff woven” (lines 5-6). This line further highlights Whitman’s optimistic nature, showing that he has the narrator first guessing that the grass could possibly represent hope. The grass could symbolize people. The line “Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,/ And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow zones” (lines 13-15) shows this because people are everywhere, just like the grass is everywhere. The “Growing among black folks as among white,/Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the/ same, I receive them the same..” (lines 16-18) suggests that the grass may also be a symbol of equality since it grows among people of all classes and races. It could also symbolize life after death, since the narrator states that “The smallest sprouts show there is really no death” (line 41). The grass grows up from the ground from the deceased, who lie under the ground. Likewise, in “And as to you Death” Whitman uses nature to symbolize that death is not as bad as one may think. “And as to you Corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me,/I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing,/I reach to the leafy lips, I reach to the polish'd breasts of melons” (lines 7-8). In these lines Whitman is