17 pages • 34 minutes read
Walt WhitmanA Glimpse
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1860A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Human Connection is Essential
Regardless of the poem’s historical context surrounding the onset of the Civil War, there are a few forces innate to the poem that the workmen attempt to elude. The first would be labor itself. The individuals in the “bar-room” are clearly identified as “workmen and drivers,” individuals of the lower and working classes (Line 2). The fact that they are gathering “around the stove late” indicates that they are most likely meeting after working hours have ended. They seek one another’s company to help decompress from the day’s hard work and escape their troubles for a little while. Besides eluding the pressures of work, the workmen also seek out one another to shelter from the “winter night” outside (Line 2). Being together with other bodies, regardless of the warmth from the stove, provides its own source of heat - both physical as well as a social and emotional warmth. The speaker and his lover likewise seek out one another’s company for respite from the world outside. While the workmen escape work and the winter, the two lovers use one another’s company to shelter themselves from the “noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest” coming from the other individuals in the bar (Line 6). These two lovers are “content” and “happy” to just be in one another’s company, not even having to speak to provide solace for one another (Line 7). Whatever the individuals from the bar are trying to escape from, if only for a short while - whether it be work, the weather, or other people - they all gravitate towards the same solution: human connection.
We Never Have the Full Picture
Just as the title relays, Whitman’s poem provides readers with just a “glimpse” of a single scene of life. Readers are given just enough information to follow along with the scene before them, but that is all. There is much more left unanswered and ambiguous for the reading audience. Readers observe the “crowd of workmen and drivers,” but don’t know exactly what all of their specific occupations are, whether they have families, etc. (Line 2). Readers are unaware about the gender of the speaker, the exact age of the “youth who loves me and whom I love,” or the occupations of either of these individuals (Line 4). Readers are unaware of what brings these two lovers together on this night, in this place, or how they came to be together in the first place. Readers merely receive a flash, a fleeting glance into the lives of these individuals. We do not know fully what goes on in their lives, just as we never have the full picture of what is happening (good and bad) in the life of the man we sit next to on the bus, or the woman in front of us in line for coffee. While we may never understand or know everything about the individuals around us, we can respect their presence and relate to them as fellow human beings on life’s journey. These pockets of mystery once again implicitly suggest that the superficial details are ultimately irrelevant, and human connection and respect is what truly matters on a cold night in a dark winter.
True Bonds Don’t Need Words
The relationship between the two lovers in the bar seeks to evoke feelings of simplicity and beauty in the reader. The lovers are set in contrast to the hustle and bustle of the other workmen going on around them. This contrast is heightened by the physical separation of the speaker and their beloved. The speaker is “seated in a corner” and away from the stove the other bar patrons gather around (Line 3). In addition to this physical separation, the two lovers are also differentiated from the other patrons by their actions. While the workmen are noisy and boisterous, partaking in “drinking and oath and smutty jest,” the two lovers are quiet (Line 6). They are “speaking little, perhaps not a word” (Line 7). This silence is not a negative attribute, as the two lovers are described as “content” and “happy” (Line 7). Instead of making the lovers seem reserved and reticent, their taciturn nature amplifies their intimacy. They simply have to sit with one another, be close, and hold hands. Their bond is so strong that they don't even have to speak to express themselves. Their presence is enough.
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By Walt Whitman
