Oh Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman Expertly Constructed an Allegory Rich with Symbolism and Imagery

Christina ‘Iloa

Carolyn Sharp

English 101

27 June 2018

Oh Lincoln! My Lincoln!

Oh Captain! My Captain! Walt Whitman expertly constructed an allegory rich with symbolism and imagery.

Whitman uses the ship, the captain, and the masses as symbols in this poem to enhance the meaning of the poem. First, Whitman uses the ship that has just returned from voyage to represent the United States of America. During the era this poem was written, the United States had just emerged from a morally and literally destructive civil war that crippled the nation, the “fearful trip” that the sailors had just completed (Whitman). The ship represents the United States and the “prize we sought [that] is won” is the northern victory of the Civil War (Whitman). The character of the Captain is a tribute to Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States. Lincoln Clary Grove who had made Lincoln their captain so long ago: "Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to possess more of the elements of greatness, combined with goodness than any other." In the first stanza Whitman tells the captain that home is close by and the sounds of the bells in the temple are echoing and those people who are waiting for him are crying eagerly to see him.

Whitman carefully crafts the images of death and war into his poem about assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The imagery he uses is a horrific testimony of the Civil War’s effect: “the death of the Redeemer President” (War and Peace). In the first stanza as the people are very excited to see Abraham Lincoln the captain, but while they are in that enthusiasm it is changed by an awful scene “the vessel grim and daring” (Whitman). Abraham Lincoln is now dead, and blood is coming out from his body. Where the poet cried “Oh heart! heart! heart!” (Whitman) that one person that people has been anxious to see is now gone and everything that he had done was all for nothing and all of it is lifeless.

Whitman wrote a short three stanza poem that is not actually about a captain and his sailors. Whitman wrote an allegory, or an extended metaphor about Abraham Lincoln and his undue assassination. His poetry “confronts Lincoln’s death, absorbs it, and processes it through toward some kind of emotional resolution” (Borchert). The poem introduces the need for a strong leader to guide the ship through perilous times that are ahead. That leader was Abraham Lincoln. Not many presidents or other political leaders have “commanded the respect and authority that Lincoln did, and he is remembered as a strong and certain leader in a difficult era of American history” (War and Peace). Abraham Lincoln was a highly esteemed president loved by so many people. He was so well respected and admonished that “when defeat came upon [the confederacy, they] acknowledged that they would be fortunate to have Lincoln to surrender to” (War and Peace).