The setting is an essential part of any story as it helps readers explore the context and provides authors with a space to add details critical for delivering the point of their view. Descriptive sentences about locations, scapes, and scenes often influence a reader’s impression, making the characters’ actions more understandable. Setting in poems and stories can strengthen a conflict or brighten the emotional aspect of the narrative (Carbery, 2019). Indeed, Whitman’s “I Hear America Singing” includes multiple scenes, and they are vital to correctly perceive the author’s message about the American triumph. This paper aims to discuss how a poem’s setting affects readers’ impression and understanding of its central point.
Poetry is the lyric genre where emotional context is more crucial than the characters’ actions. Consequently, the setting becomes a tool for making readers feel what the author wanted to tell in their poems. Whitman’s poem describes Americans of different professions, and locations play a valuable role in emphasizing the hopeful mood of the working nation (Whitman, 2017). The places mentioned in “I Hear America Singing” are rather abstract and tied to the citizens’ jobs.
The poem includes boats, streets, carpenters’ services, shoemakers’ benches, and other locations that a reader can imagine by reading about the actions people perform (Whitman, 2017). The same activity, such as signing, is an important detail to consider because it shows that people experience the same mood regardless of what they are doing. Moreover, the context of unity can be understood through the absence of specific states, counties, or other locations (Carbery, 2019). Whitman tailors the message that everyone is singing and helps the reader feel the nation’s triumph.
The settings affect the reader’s impression of the poem, making it more emotional and addressing the context of the historical period it describes. Whitman includes multiple scenes in “I Hear America Singing,” emphasizing the uplifting mood’s wideness (Whitman, 2017). It makes the reader feel that the entire nation, regardless of social status, job, or gender, is full of hopes for the prosperity America strives for. Whitman (2017) wrote that “the delicious singing of the mother, or the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing, each singing what belongs to him or her and none else.” These lines include three settings that lead a reader to the impression that women of all ages and roles enjoy their life and work to help their nation thrive. Furthermore, scenes are described through actions, making the poem more dynamic and interesting to read.
A poem’s setting is crucial for making the right impression on a reader, and the authors use it to deliver their message correctly. In “I Hear America Singing,” Whitman does not include any particular descriptions of places, yet makes them clear by creating dynamic scenes of people doing their jobs. As different professions require unique settings, and the citizens are united by singing, a reader understands the hopeful and triumphal mood of the entire nation. Whitman also helps develop the right impression by eliminating mentions of certain states or cities. Combined with describing the activities of people in various professions, men, women, and children, the setting reveals the context of the prosperous period of American history. The dynamic scenes of citizens doing their jobs and singing in various places nationwide make a reader understand the main point correctly and create the right impression of triumph.
References
Carbery, M. (2019). Coming to terms with the American long poem: Introduction. In Phenomenology and the Late Twentieth-Century American Long Poem (pp. 1-35). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. Web.
Whitman, W. (2017). I hear America singing. Poetry Foundation. Web.