Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking
The ability to pinpoint the birth or beginning of the poet lifestyle is rare. It is rare for the observer as it is for the writer. The Walt Whitman poem "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking" is looked at by most as just that. It is a documentation, of sorts, of his own paradigm shift. The realities of the world have therein matured his conceptual frameworks. In line 147 we read "Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake." This awakening is at the same time a death. The naivete of the speaker (I will assume Whitman) is destroyed. Through his summer long observation, the truths of life are born, or at least reinforced, in him. The obvious elements are birth and death, which are both caused by another instance of the latter (death of the "she-bird"). Nature's role is omnipresent. Not only in the sense of it giving a constant livable environment, but also almost deified in the personification of its will and actions. The birth of vision in the speaker is due not only to the observation of death, as that is just a single occurrence, but to the observation of the role of nature in all of its mysterious cycles.Nature is not the sole source of dramatic symbolism in the piece. The actions of the characters themselves reflect the piec
The birds' thoughts are his own interpretation. The beauty is in truth and understanding. Out of these associations comes the suggestion that life and death too, like day and night, are merely a part of the rhythmical evolution of the universe. Attention is not focused on the birds and sea themselves, but on the boy-man's growing understanding brought on by them. " (Miller p109)This conclusion made by Miller shows how exactly Whitman takes the parts, separates them, then combines them as a whole. At the poem's beginning we are exposed to color and vivid description, which is the first category. The seemingly autobiographical nature of this piece instantly calls for observation. The structure of time changes throughout the piece, but is consistent. His line of questioning the same as with the bird; is this for me? He finds the answer to lay at the meeting point of sea and land, therefore the physical and spiritual (if we refer back to Miller's theory). Whitman knows of the truth and the vision now born within him. He then makes mention of all the words forced upon him upon his epiphany. The first stanza of the poem is mostly in the present tense as the advanced Whitman is summarizing the events before he tells of them. On the shore near the childhood home of Whitman, the scene is set in May when he as a boy, finds a nest of birds, male and female and their eggs. Whitman recognizes this and begins the process of slowly coming to learn the truths of the world. Though these "characters" set the scene and take center stage at different points, it must be remembered that what occurs is removed from the reader by two filters.
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Acceptance Essays
