18 pages • 36 minutes read
Walt WhitmanFor You O Democracy
Fiction | 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.
Symbols & Motifs
Democracy
Scholars often refer to Whitman as the poet of democracy. In “For You O Democracy,” the speaker addresses democracy in direct, intimate, and affectionate terms. They refer to democracy as “ma femme!” (Line 11), which is French for “my wife.” Other translations of the phrase include terms of endearment such as “my girl,” “my woman,” “my lady,” or “my bride.” Thus, the speaker addresses democracy using verbiage typically associated with females and the feminine. In the poem, democracy is also the unifying force that brings everyone and everything together regardless of landscape, location, circumstance, and background. It is not merely a concept, but an evolutionary and revolutionary force that has many obstacles to overcome. In the poem, democracy is not simply a form of government. It is an aesthetic and principle that individuals must practice in their everyday lives. For the speaker, democracy is a word directly correlated with nature, and it is therefore a force that is a direct consequence of nature.
Comrades
The speaker uses the word “comrades” four times in the poem (Lines 4, 5, 9, 10) with complex associations. At the core of Whitman’s poetic and personal life, the idea of companionship and camaraderie, according to scholars, was a multifaceted concept. It was crucial, a religious experience that provided humanity with a sense of God’s existence. At a political level, and one that is explicit to “For You O Democracy,” comradeship was a form of bonding that held the power to transform and unify the fractured United States in which Whitman lived and worked. The comradeship is also necessary at the poet-reader level, which extends a type of loving consciousness amid the word’s political associations and connotations. Ultimately, “comrades” (Lines 4, 5, 9, 10) is an invitation to the poem’s readers to form a passionate, mutual relationship with the speaker at the personal and political levels, since the speaker portrays democracy as an issue requiring everyone’s commitment and involvement.
The “I” and the “You”
The first-person pronoun “I” (Lines 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 12) appears six times in the poem. The repetition of this pronoun reinforces the theme of individualism inherent in not only “For You O Democracy” but in Whitman’s poetry overall. Since Whitman’s poetry rejects formalism and is written primarily in free verse, the combination of the free verse form and the frequent usage of the pronoun “I” establishes the idea of a completely free individual. The individual attains this freedom through a truly unified, democratic society. The “I” primarily appears at the beginning of the lines in which the pronoun appears. This placement establishes that the individual and primarily the self, as well as the embrace of individualism, are the true foundations of a democratic platform.
The second-person pronoun “you” appears four times (Lines 11, 12) in the poem. At first, the “you” (Lines 11, 12) can be interpreted as an address to the reader. However, the speaker states, “For you these from me, O Democracy” (Line 11). The “you” (Line 11) appears in direct correlation to “O Democracy” (Line 11). The speaker’s repetition of “you” (Lines 11, 12) in the span of two lines gives a sense of interaction between not only the speaker and the reader, but also between the speaker and democracy. By addressing democracy as “you” (Lines 11, 12), the speaker shapes democracy into a living, almost human, entity.
Related Titles
By Walt Whitman
