Journal #38: "As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing"

This poem of Whitman's is mainly a mixed composition of "every-man" figures and Christianity symbolism. These establish a sort of holy trio through the common laborer roles, and delve into an allegory of life and death. It's pretty obvious how the poem deals with the "every man" concept. The poem deals with a harvester, sower, and ploughman. It doesn't take much more than common knowledge to know that these are three hard laborer roles. Therefore, they represent the middle class and common laboring habits of the people of Whitman's era. Going deeper into the symbolism of the poem brings out the Christianity aspects of it. Notice that the ploughman plows all the crops, taking them away for good. This represents death or God's ability to end lives. The sower sows, or plants seeds in the land. This represents birth, or the soul. The harvester harvests the crops out of the land, and once again, this represents death. Together, these three characters represent the Holy Spirit, God, and Jesus. Alongside this, the poem also represents the circle of life in general. The sower represents the power of birth by planting seeds, the harvester represents life, by taking crops and giving it to others, and the ploughman represents death by completely harvesting all the crops. By demonstrating the circular habits of farming and etc., Whitman also portrays the circle of life through these every man techniques and Christianity. This is pretty impressive considering the poem is an entire four lines. It's about thirty something words, and by just using three roles and a very brief statement involving life and death, Whitman manages to cram all this stuff involving Christan symbolism, life and death, and the circle of life into it. It probably goes even deeper than that, but I'm not going to further elaborate on that subject. This is initially the central theme and exploration of Whitman's poem, and therefore the most important. Ultimately, the poem demonstrates Whitman's ability to mix interesting every man concepts and heavy symbolism.