Within Whitman’s Song of Myself, he utilizes the most prominent figurative language strategy of repetition. This is not the only figurative device that he utilizes, but it is one of the most notable ones.
He uses repetition as a way of emphasizing the connections between all of these living things as well as himself. As he reveals throughout, he feels a deeper connection to these things and people. Thus, by utilizing repetition, he is able to emphasize just how connected he feels every element is.
For instance, in Song of Myself #15, he repeats the phrase “The [noun]”, which becomes a list of things that are weaved into Whitman’s “Song of [himself]”
“The pilot seizes the king-pin, he heaves down with a strong arm, / The mate stands braced in the whale-boat, lance and harpoon are ready, / The duck-shooter walks by silent and cautious stretches, […] And these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, / And such as it is to be of these more or less I am, / And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.” (Pg. 1321 – 1323, #15)
The phrases that he uses at the ending of this section of Whitman’s Song of Myself shows off that the speaker feels that all of these things are connected both to each other and to the speaker themselves. Without the last three lines, it would seem more like a list and unrelated to each other. However, with the inclusion of these last three lines, it becomes a list of things and people that are all interconnected and tied to the speaker. They go from simply people going about their days to this web of people and how their souls are all connected through one person.
Then, he also utilizes a large portion of imagery in order to convey what he is seeing himself. He describes, again in #15 but also in #33 the people that he sees.
“The carpenter dresses his plank, the tongue of his foreplane whistles / its wild ascending lisp, … The lunatic is carried at last to the asylum a confirm’d case, / (He will never sleep any more as he did in the cot in his mother’s / bed-room;)” (Pg. 1321, #15)
“Flatboatmen make fast towards dusk near the cotton-wood or pecan-trees, / Coon-seekers go through the regions of the Red river or through those / drain’d by the Tennessee, or through those of the Arkansas, / Torches shine in the dark that hangs on the Chattahooch or Altamahaw, / Patriarchs sit at supper with sons and grandsons and great-grandsons / around them, / In walls of adobie, in canvas tents, rest hunters and trappers after their / day’s sport,” (Pg. 1323, #15)`
“I am the mash’d fireman with breast-bone borken, / Tumbling walls buried me in their debris, / Heat and smoke I inspired, I heard the yelling shouts of my comrades, / I heard the distant click of their picks and shovls, / They have clear’d the beams away, they tenderly lift me forth. / I lie in the night air in my red shirt, the pervading hush is for my sake, / Painless after all I lie exhauusted but not so unhappy, / White and beautiful are the faces around me, the heads are bared of / their fire-caps, / The kneeling crowd fades with the light of the torches.” (pg. 1340, #33)
This shows off the beautiful use of imagery whilst also conveying that the speaker / Whitman view themselves as being one in the same as the observed, viewing their experiences in a light that reflects and is a part of their own. It reflects the connectedness of these images and situations, in a way that enhances the overall argument that the speaker is akin to Jesus (in the Christian sense of being the Messiah and all) and feels, experiences, and sees the vast experiences of all humans, becoming them in turn.
With both the repetition and imagery, he ensures that he conveys the idea that he is akin to Jesus, again in the Christian sense, connected to all things and being all things whilst also being himself.
Without doing this, he would not have had such a strong impact on the reader.
