Whitman VI

“Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic, 

And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow

zones. 

Growing among black folks as among white, 

Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them

the same, I receive them the same.” 

Whitman provides his view of American/national identity in poem VI. Throughout the poem he expresses the idea of the self and the identification of the self with other selves. Each self is made up of its own characteristics. The American identity is a collection of different types of people including blacks, whites, Kanucks, and Tuckahoes. Whitman treats each of them the same, but the rest of America segregates them. Whitman doesn’t feel like he is any different from any one else including children, or people of different backgrounds and races. Therefore, he believes that everyone should all be treated equally.  In order to do so you must question where we come from, who we are, and how we participate in the circle of life. Everyone goes through the same circle of life no matter their race or background, thus no one shall treated differently and or segregated. A present theme in the poem is the poet’s relationship with the elements of nature and the universe. Whitman uses grass as an analogy for human life, showing how it grows from the soil where the dead have been buried and does not discriminate based on the types of people that have come before it.