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https://poets.org/poem/sight-camp-daybreak-gray-and-dim

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What images does the poet use? How do the images relate to one another? Do these images form a unified pattern (a motif) throughout the poem?

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What images does the poet use? How do the images relate to one another? Do these images form a unified pattern (a motif) throughout the poem?

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Walt Whitman uses images of men on his way to hospital tents at a camp during a war, and they relate to each other because every imagery we are given are about different, dying men. For example, when the speaker is about to go into the hospital tent, he sees three men, and “Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket/ Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all” (Whitman, Lines 7-8). The readers get this imagery of dead men throughout the poem by describing the ways in which they are suffering. These images form a motif of distress throughout the poem, demonstrated by the men the speaker encounters.

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What is the poem’s tone? Which words reveal this tone? Is the poem ironic?

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What is the poem’s tone? Which words reveal this tone? Is the poem ironic?

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In the poem, a tone is revealed in the first line of the first stanza, “...in the daybreak gray and dim”. Even though the night seems peaceful and foggy, the audience realizes that the narrator is “sleepless” (Whitman, Line 2). The narrator runs into three dead bodies on its way “by the hospital tent” (Whitman, Line 3). This displays a tone of gloom and mournfulness.

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What figures of speech are used? How do they contribute to the tone and meaning of the poem?

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What figures of speech are used? How do they contribute to the tone and meaning of the poem?

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A figure of speech used is a personification. This is seen when the speaker talks about another dying man, and he says, “Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?” (Whitman, Line 16). Using context clues, the reader can infer that the man the speaker is referencing is a young man, mainly because of the use of the words “sweet boy.” This moment contributes to the tone and meaning of the poem because it makes the meaning more devastating and the tone more full of dread. The young man’s life has been consumed by the war, and he was not allowed to grow up properly and fully because of this, allowing his “cheeks” to not yet bloom with happiness.

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Are there any symbols? What do they mean? Are they universal symbols or do they arise from the context of this poem?

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Are there any symbols? What do they mean? Are they universal symbols or do they arise from the context of this poem?

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Some symbols revealed in this poem are the three dead men the narrator comes across First, the old man symbolizes the elderly age people trying to rebirth the country for its new generation as the poem consists of a war setting. Secondly, the young boy “with cheeks… blooming” symbolizes the innocence and purity of people’s life vanishing from the military (Whitman, Line 14). Lastly, the narrator compares the third body to “the face of Christ” (Whitman, Line 17). To Christians, Christ died for the sins of mankind. In this poem, Whitman explains Christ to illustrate that the soldiers’ deaths will not be abandoned and will be remembered for their good of the country.