‘O Captain! My Captain!

’ is a poem written by Walt Whitman, in which the speaker, a sailor, mourns the
loss of his captain who did not make it through the journey. The poem serves as an extended metaphor
and an allusion to the assassination of American President Abraham Lincoln.

Walt Whitman was born on May 31st 1819 and bore witness to the key events in American history of the
19th century, including the American Civil War. During the war, Whitman aligned himself with the Union
(North) who opposed the Confederacy (South) and rooted for abolition of slavery. One of the leaders of
the Northern states was Abraham Lincoln, who would become the president of the United States after
the victory of the Union. Unsurprisingly, Whitman greatly admired Lincoln. Even though they never met,
Whitman was deeply affected by his assassination in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth. In his grief, the poet
wrote multiple elegies and poems, one of which was ‘O Captain! My Captain!’

In the poem, a ship arrives at the unnamed port, full of people cheering for the ship’s return, and for the
captain who led the ship through every storm and hardship, but passed away before the arrival. The
speaker of the poem, a sailor of the ship, expresses his regret and grief for the late captain, as well as
praising him and comparing him to a father figure. The crowd keeps on celebrating, still unaware of the
captain’s demise, as the sailor sombrely notes by the end.

The poem is written as a ballad in three eight-line stanzas. The first four lines in each stanza are longer,
written in an iambic meter, and follow an AABB rhyme scheme. By contrast, the succeeding four lines are
shorter, tend to deviate from the iambic meter and follow a CDED rhyme scheme. It reflects the thematic
and emotional shifts in the transition from one quatrain to another. Each stanza begins with a
description of the crowd celebrating the ship’s arrival in the harbour. However, the stanza then redirects
attention to the speaker’s grief at the loss of his captain. In this way, the transformation undergone by
each stanza mirrors the juxtaposition between victory and loss that is central to the poem’s themes.

The poem heavily alludes to Lincoln’s death and Whitman’s high praise for the president. One of the
elements to support this are key themes of the poem: victory and loss as well as grief with isolation. The
author conveys his high regard for the late president in the persona of a sailor. The metaphor is
established in the line “The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won”, where the ship
(United States) has endured ‘every rack’ (Civil War) and thanks to the efforts of the captain (Lincoln)
whom he addresses, ‘the prize’ they sought was won (victory and unification). It is also continued by the
use of irony, as the crowd cheers the figure who brought the ship to safety, yet he is not alive to
acknowledge the glory and the moment of triumph. Whitman also juxtaposes lexis associated with both
victory and loss, such as ‘ringing bells, ‘bouquets,’ ‘wreaths,’ ‘cheering crowds’ with positive
connotations for victory celebrated by the crowd, and the dead body of the captain, described as ‘cold,’
‘dead,’ ‘pale,’ and ‘still’, adjectives associated with death and defeat. By doing this, Whitman creates
contrast, with clashing feelings of tragedy and delight, and the great price of the captain’s life that had to
be paid for the ship’s safe return and the crowd’s celebration.

Whitman’s admiration for Lincoln, with his grief and isolation, is explored through the use of the
apostrophe, with now-iconic ‘O Captain! My Captain!’, directly addressing the deceased captain as if he
was still alive. The intensity and longing for the character is intensified by anaphora, with repetition of ‘O
Captain!’, as well as epizeuxis of ‘heart!’, which is repeated 3 times, conveying the shock and devastation
within the speaker due to this tragedy. The isolation of the speaker is conveyed through the use of
possessive pronoun ‘my’ as in ‘My Captain!’ and ‘my father’. The use of possessive pronoun indicates a
personal aspect to the captain’s passing. Even though he was a captain to everyone on the ship, he was
of immense importance in the speaker’s heart, which is continued with referring to the captain as a
paternal figure, indicating an intimate perception of their relationship. In the closing lines, the speaker
notes that ‘But I with mournful tread, Walk the deck my Captain lies’, emphasizing his unbreakable bond
with the captain that does not allow him to move on and disembark the ship and join the cheering
crowd.
In conclusion, Walt Whitman's poem "O Captain! My Captain!", while commemorating Abraham Lincoln,
also explores the universal ideas of loss and grief through the active use of metaphors, and emphasizing
it with apostrophes and juxtapositions. Even though the poem is more specific to and is influenced by
the historical context of the American Civil War, the poem has a large emotional weight, unbound by its
contextual limits and applicable in other cultural environments.