In the Mind of Whitman (maybe)

WHITMAN'S NOTEBOOK:

AT A GLANCE:

Initially, I found Whitman's notebook to be very unorganized, but as I scrolled through it again, I kept seeing the word "ship" pop up. 

At one point he says "ship of libertad" (maybe). Either way, it looks kind of like "ship of liberty." 

He later mentions "the last war"which makes me think of how war is supposed to lead to liberty. 

He has some weird drawings of himself? 

The first drawing looks pretty normal in my opinion. It looks like the perception of an outsider maybe?

The second drawing looks like he's depicting himself as outspoken. The facial expression and his hand motions make it look that way at least.

The third drawing looks relatively normal, but seems like it is exaggerating his features. 

The fourth drawing looks like he's depicting himself as introvert or maybe even hiding himself away? 

Then there's this weird drawing of George Washington (?) as a skeleton with a huge heart and an arrow through it. I honestly didn't know what to make of this, other then it seemed to go along with the theme of liberty and maybe ships?

AFTER:

The first thing I noticed after reading was the possible purpose behind him using ship so much. It looks like he used it in a metaphorical sense rather than a literal sense, like "Ship of State" or "Ship of  the Hope of the World."

I also realized the context of Whitman's notebook -- the civil war. It looks like a lot of his notes were about a dialogue with Lincoln, which is a little strange to me. I feel like he didn't actually have any really strong feelings about Lincoln, but planned to use these fictional dialogues to critique society.

It turns out that "the last war" was in reference to the civil war, which I found to be interesting. I can't tell if Whitman really thought this was going to be the "last war" as in everything will be peaceful, or as in everything is downhill from here. For whatever reason, Whitman doesn't strike me as the type of person who would think anything was ever going to be peaceful, so I'm thinking the second interpretation may be more accurate. 

I thought the use of "Libertad" was really interesting. He used the Spanish word for "Liberty" rather than regular English. It sad that no one really knew for sure why he used it, but that it was possibly his way of saying that freedom needed to universal to other nations.

As far as the drawings, I found it interesting that these weren't his depictions of himself, but of others. I feel like the way others depict us is more accurate than the way we depict ourselves. We always look at ourselves in the best or worst lights, which I why I initially thought Whitman drew the images -- because they seemed so extreme. So, when I found out that these were the work of others, I trusted their interpretations more --if that makes sense? All and all, I think Whitman appears introverted, but maybe is more opinionated and outspoken to more friendly faces.

The last drawing is still pretty sketchy (get it?). It mentioned that it was a possible allegory to America as a whole, which made sense to me, but it also bothers me that I won't ever know for sure why Whitman included it. 

So, to organize my thoughts a bit, here's what I think: Whitman is hitting on the themes of liberty and freedom in his writings because of the context of the Civil War and the implications it had socially. I think he also focuses on the idea of other nations freedom and hints at the importance of it. This next assumption may be a bit of a stretch, but I think Whitman also struggled with his personal freedom. I think he was probably an introverted individual who struggled with expressing his opinions vocally. I think he used his poetry as his freedom of expression, but still struggled with expressing his views outwardly.