Inside the Mind of Walt Whitman

Step 1) 

After reviewing all of the documents that belonged to Walt Whitman in his personal notebook, it becomes very clear that he is very interesting man, with a lot of hidden secrets. For instance, some of the most prominent things that I noticed included the fact that Whitman was very involved politically with the United States, he actually had his own severe life problems, and he was very self confident. Walt Whitman was very involved with the political health of the United States as he is very concerned with the breaking apart of the union. In many of the documents, he is having a conversation with Abraham Lincoln, which is completely imaginary. I believe that these conversations with Lincoln are very significant for analyzing Walt Whitman's character because he was clearly very involved with the politics of his era. Another feature that I noticed about Whitman was his mid-life crisis that he endured which was the failing of the book/novel industry in the United States during the 1860's. Whitman's publishers were going out of business and Leaves of Grass was receiving very poor ratings, which was a severe problem for Whitman. Lastly, one aspect of Walt Whitman's life that I think is very important is the fact that he is very self confident. I assumed this because of Whitman's tendency to enjoy people sketching him or taking pictures of him. Overall, these documents about Whitman are very good at giving the reader an inside view about himself.

Step 2)

From reading the notes about the documents that Whitman created, there are many interesting things revealed about Walt Whitman. First, Whitman believed during this time period that the United States was headed into total collapse, but he did include the word "perhaps" which means that he had a small sliver of hope that the union would save itself. Another interesting thing about Walt Whitman is that he used the word "libertad" which is Spanish for Liberty. Whitman is becoming a very strange man, just from simply reading his documents and notes, it becomes evident that he is very unusual. Secondly, Walt Whitman uses fascinating diction such as the words "waves" and "wind" to describe what it felt like to live in the United States during Civil War time period. Also, Whitman used the word "ship" to describe aspects of all life bigger than his, for instance, "ship of humanity". Finally, the notes are able to again prove the point that secretly Whitman was very self confident and enjoyed people either drawing or taking pictures of his face and he found them to be very interesting. 

Overall, I think the biggest factor about Whitman's life during this violent era is the fact that he is actually confused with what is going on around him. Whitman probably does not completely understand the significance of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln as a whole, but he does understand that the future of his great country is at a very large risk of being destroyed by the people which make it up.