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Slavery and “I Sit and Look Out”
In Walt Whitman’s poem “I Sit and Look Out”, it may seem like the narrator is purely
looking outside at all of the awful things people do in their daily lives, but he is in fact talking
about slavery. All of the lines in this poem have to do with an injustice that was common in the
times of slavery. African men and women were experiencing “oppression and shame”. The men
and women who were forced to be servants weren’t happy and they knew that they deserved so
much better than to be underneath the white people. Throughout this poem you clearly see that
Walt Whitman was against slavery and wanted it to be abolished.
Each line in this poem shows evidence of the aspects of slavery. The narrator says in
lines three through four “I hear secret convulsive sobs from young men at anguish with them/selves, remorseful after deeds done.” This passage references the men who were pulled away
from their families by the white men. The use of the word “secret” in this passage is the most
important because slaves had to hide when they cried. Slaves were depressed and when they
cried they would be punished by their masters because they thought of them as horses ,without
feelings, needing to be broken.
The slaves, then, would be caused to have feelings of “jealousy and unrequited love
attempted to be/ hid” (lines 10-11). The men and women under “oppression” would have to
pretend to enjoy their masters just to survive. The word “unrequited” means one-sided. The
master may have enjoyed the slaves because they gave them help, but the servant hated their
master. They had to hide their true feelings for their masters and their families throughout the
abuse in order to survive. It was either that or risk death through whippings.
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Possibly one of the worst moment in the life in slavery is the way that the African men
and women and children were treated. They were forced to act kind and submissive to every
white person they saw even through all of the “degradations cast by arrogant persons” (line 15).
The slaves were treated poorly by all. Even the “poor” and “laborers” were treated better than the
African slaves. Slaves experienced all sorts of “meanness and agony” (line 17). Most witnessed
almost no mercy. The mockings never ceased and the torment they received was almost endless.
It wasn’t until the civil war that there seemed to be hope for these servants. Whitman
referenced the war in lines twelve through thirteen when the narrator says that he looks out and
sees “the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny”(lines 12-13) and “martyrs and prisoners”(lines
13). Whitman tries to portray in this line the sadness of war. Although the slaves were finally
receiving the chance they had always waited for, the war did not come without cost.
Whitman emphasize how much the Africans had to go through by talking about the
journey they were forced to come on to get to the United States.In lines fourteen through fifteen
he states “I observe a famine at sea, I observe the sailors casting lots who shall be/ kill’d to
preserve the lives of the rest”. This portrays the image of slave traders on a ship without much
food left, and then they gamble to see which Africans they will kill in order to keep the others
alive. The fear and starvation these men, women and children was one way that the white men
found to control the slaves before they went to America to be bought. If a person is starving, they
can’t put up much of a fight.
Whitman uses this poem as a way to provoke a feeling of sorrow for the slaves and
persuade his audience to realize that action must take place if anything was going to change. He
does this through his choice of language. He uses adjectives that give off images of sadness and
depression. For example, Walt Whitman uses the words: “sorrows”, “oppression”, “shame”,
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“convulsive sobs” , “anguish”, “remorseful”, “dying”, “agony” and many others in this poem.
None of these words portray a light happy aura. Through these words, Whitman shows his point
that he thinks slavery is wrong and that it isn’t something he wants to continue.
Whitman also starts out every line with a verb that requires no outward action. The
narrator “hears”, “sees”, “marks”, “observes”, and most importantly “sits” and makes no attempt
to move or speak up. Whitman is trying to portray that when a person notices an injustice
without acting or becoming vocal, nothing is going to change. The narrator makes no point to
move. He chooses to be silent even though he sees all of the sadness in the world that is caused
by slavery. The narrator obviously has noticed injustices happening in his own neighborhood but
sits and does nothing. Emphasis is placed on the word “sit” when it is placed in the title because
it is a word that means that no action is taken place. He keeps all of his words of action
sedentary.
“I Sit and Look Out” portrays Whitman’s view on slavery. Throughout the poem he
shows his audience what he sees going on in his time. Every single line in this poem is tied to the
African slave trade and the lives of the slaves. The narrator sees so many wrongs happening to
the slaves around him and yet sits and waits for it to change. By using the technique of sedentary
words, he portrays that the world will not change without action. He shows the injustices that the
Africans had to go through. They endured so much before and during the civil war.