-Walt Whitman was captivated by the Civil War.

Most of his poetry reflects on that and is

representative of American ideals and culture. He wrote “O Captain My Captain” as an a kind of
mourning poem, also called elegy, in order to honor Abraham Lincoln.
-Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of US. Lincoln led the nation through the Civil War,
its bloodiest war and its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he
preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and
modernized the economy.
Speaker:
-The speaker in the poem has a very strong connection to the captain, just as Walt Whitman felt
strongly about Abraham Lincoln.
-The speaker’s love for the captain strikes us as genuine. More importantly, his love makes this
captain seem more human. He’s not just some talking head, a leader with whom we can’t
connect. He’s a person who is loved and mourned by the speaker.
-In that way, the speaker’s affection is a model for us, the audience. The captain’s death is not
just some abstract political event. It is a real, human tragedy that we should all be deeply affected
by. The speaker’s emotional mourning is proof of that.
Title:
To get the obvious out of the way first, the title—“O Captain! My Captain!”—is indeed the first
four words of the poem. More than that, though, you should know is that the title is what’s called
an apostrophe (not like the punctuation). An apostrophe is a poetry term for when the speaker
calls out to someone (or an idea or an object) who’s not actually there. After the captain dies, the
speaker is in the position of making this emotional appeal to a person who can no longer respond
to him.
In this apostrophe, the first call to the captain gets the attention of the reader, but the second call
of “my captain” suggests a bond between the speaker and captain. That possessive and intimate
bond announces a theme that is going to get fleshed out in the rest of this piece. Also, the
exclamation points add a note of desperation and excitement (though not the good kind) to the
poem that follows. This poem is an urgent appeal, and the title lets us know that right off the bat
Symbols:
Ship: Whitman’s uses the ship in “O Captain! My Captain!” to represent the voyage of the
United States as a whole. The ship stands in for the nation as it moved through the difficult times
of the Civil War ("our fearful trip"), toward a peaceful solution (even if it was one not entirely
agreed upon, as evidenced by Lincoln's assassination). As a result of the difficult voyage (the
Civil War), the ship looks “grim and daring.” The imagery of the worn vessel parallels the
condition of the people who were affected by the war. Many citizens, soldiers, and leaders
suffered starvation, poverty, and anxiety over its course.
Captain: Since this poem was written to mourn the death of Lincoln, we can assume that the
captain of the ship is none other than the man who was in charge. Whitman saw Lincoln as
a symbol of the average American, someone who could become a great leader from humble
beginnings. Of course, the loss of President Lincoln in 1865—right after the signing of a treaty
between the North and South—could have thrown the country right back into war. So Whitman
writes this allegorical poem both to mourn Lincoln and to celebrate the magnitude of his
accomplishments in uniting the country after conflict.
Masses: In “O Captain! My Captain!,” we can assume that the cheering crowd is a synecdoche, a
small population that represents the majority of Americans who were happy to put the war
behind them. Although they do not feel the personal loss that the speaker does, we can see in
their joy that the captain’s death was not in vain.
 O Captain! My Captain!
BY WA LT WH IT MAN

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.