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Essay / Walt Whitman's view of American glory in I Hear America Singing
America is made up of hard-working, dedicated individuals who love doing what they do. I Hear America Singing by Walt Whitman focuses on the glory that America holds when its people work and when they work doing what they love, it encompasses the idea of a country built on hard work. What makes this poem effective in describing this idea is the fact that Whitman mentions people who contribute to the structure of America in many ways. He mentions the carpenters and masons, who physically built America, and he mentions the boatmen and shoemakers, who built the American economy. However, one person he mentions is building America in an entirely different way: emotionally. Whitman mentions that a mother, or a young wife, sings and that this singing can be found delightful. No matter who it is, it can be assumed that everyone enjoys what they do and that this joy is expressed in the song. Whitman mentions that a carpenter and a mason sing while they work, implying that they are satisfied and joyful with their work. The carpenter, “singing while measuring his board” (4) and the mason, “singing while preparing for work” (6), show that these two are joyful at work and express this joy by singing. This contributes to the theme of joy through creation because as the carpenter and mason work, creating civilization, they are completely satisfied with it. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Two other people Whitman mentions are those who build the American economy. Both the shoemaker and the boatman create the economy because they have a variety of goods available. This ties into the theme of building on many levels because, just like the mason and the carpenter, the shoemaker and the boatman create the foundations of America and they too are satisfied and happy when they do so. The last person Whitman mentions in the poem is totally different from the first because what carpenters, masons, boatmen, and shoemakers do for America is tangible and visible across the country. Unlike these four, a mother, or a young wife as Whitman would say, creates the emotional and ideological structure of America. The process of achieving this is also different from the other four examples because it is also a national effort to develop ideas in America. This is an example of multi-layered creation as a wife or mother does not work with any materials when she creates ideas in the minds of her children, yet her children will one day be important as they will eventually inherit the country, for so to speak. . The themes of multi-layered creation and joy through creation in I Hear America Singing, although not the learning of everyone mentioned, are important to the poem because they show that although this what some people do for their country may not be as difficult for everyone, the results of their actions could still be crucial to the structure of America.