23 pages • 46 minutes read
Walt WhitmanI Sit and Look Out
Walt WhitmanFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1860A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
The Disillusion and Dissolution of the American Dream
America in the 1850s and 1860s was a nation in crisis and, eventually, a nation at war with itself. In writing an epic about America, Whitman desired to heal the nation with his words. Many of his poems celebrate the potential of America due to the great beauty and wonder inherent in its citizens. However, the issue of slavery, in particular, was the great wound that seemed too infected to heal.
This historical context forms the backdrop to the despair that permeates the poem and that manifests especially in a catalog of oppressive relationships. Men abuse and exploit women; a husband “misuse[s]” his wife, and a “treacherous seducer” preys on young women, putting his own pleasure above their reputations and livelihoods. Likewise, the rich abuse and exploit “laborers” and “the poor,” and white Americans abuse and exploit Black Americans. Far from being a place where everyone has the chance to succeed, America emerges as a place of entrenched haves and have-nots. The image of the mother abandoned to poverty by her children underscores Whitman’s indictment, paralleling the state of the nation itself—a land of promise that has nurtured the very people who have turned their backs on it.
Nor is this betrayal simply a matter of exploitation. In rejecting their mother, the children have broken a “natural” bond, in much the same way that the husband who abuses his wife violates the marital relationship. Indeed, descriptions of people at odds with one another or themselves litter the poem, from “the sailors casting lots who shall be kill'd” to the “young men, at anguish with themselves” (Lines 7, 2). Such images of conflict and division gesture toward the divided state of the country itself, framing this as an unnatural rift between those who ought to be united.
Amid this turmoil, the speaker cannot act, other than to “see,” hear,” and “observe.” He can do nothing to change the fates of those whose lives and happiness are at peril, culminating in the closing line: “[I] see, hear, and am silent” (Line 9). As a statement of powerlessness, however, this remark is contradicted by the poem that precedes it; the speaker is not silent but gives voice to the voiceless, from prisoners to starving sailors, redressing the imbalance of power and showing empathy for their sufferings. Moreover, in uniting these disparate groups within a single textual space, the poem achieves a kind of national unity, hinting that healing may be possible after all.
Poet as Seer and See-er, not just Singer
Some have critiqued Whitman’s repeated claims that he can understand the “many.” D.H. Lawrence poked fun at Whitman when he said, “As soon as Walt knew a thing, he assumed a One Identity with it. If he knew that an Eskimo sat in a kayak, immediately there was Walt […] sitting in a kayak” (Lawrence, D.H., et al. Studies in Classic American Literature. Kiribati, Cambridge University Press, 2003). In “I Sit and Look Out,” however, Whitman refrains from such identification. He does not transform into those he observes but instead remains seated and looking, allowing those who suffer the space to grieve while the speaker acknowledges their suffering and grieves as well.
Whitman stresses the poet’s role as spectator throughout the poem; the word “see” recurs seven times, alongside a variety of synonyms, including “observe” (three times), “mark” (one time), and, of course, “look” (two times). Even the repetition of “I,” a homophone for “eye,” suggests the centrality of vision. While the words vary in connotation—“look” implies more active observation than “see,” for example—the overall effect is to bear witness to what the poet describes. Opening each line with a variant of “I see” insists on the particularity of each act of seeing; the speaker does not simply see a list of individuals but rather each person as an individual. It also maintains the separation between observer and observed; the speaker’s “I” never disappears into what it sees but remains clearly delineated throughout the poem.
Nevertheless, the act of seeing takes an implicit toll on the speaker, who seems trapped by his litany of despair. Roy Harvey Pearce points out that in the 1860 edition:
[Whitman’s] freedom to rejoice in the miraculousness of the real […] has its own cost. The greatest is a terrible passivity, as though in order to achieve his freedom, man had to offer himself up as the victim of his own vivified sensibility (Pearce, Roy Harvey. “Whitman Justified: The Poet in 1860.” Whitman: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. Roy Harvey Pearce. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1962, pp. 37-59).
Whitman wanted a poetry that embraced all of America, even the pain of America. However, such an embrace has a “cost.” The speaker cannot look away and sees even things that others might miss—e.g., “the ranklings of jealousy and unrequited love, attempted to be hid” (Line 5). Because nothing escapes his observation, he becomes overwhelmed by just how much suffering he has to hold. The word choice throughout the poem—“anguish,” “gaunt,” “treacherous”—creates a despairing tone, while the speaker’s final lapse into silence suggests both exhaustion and defeat. The one consolation the poem offers is that acknowledging and processing such grief may restore the fullness of future songs.
Unlock all 23 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 9,100+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Walt Whitman
