Journal 38 "As I Watch'd the Ploughman Ploughing

Whitman quite often included ideas about the everyman and Christianity in many of his poems. This poem is no different as it has content concerning both of these topics. Literally, this poem speaks about a plowman, which is quite the simple life. A farmer harvesting crops is one of the oldest and most simple professions that would make the leading character an everyman. He is only doing his job, which is making him an average person. Overall he is an average person trying to get through his life. The more significant portion of this poem is concerning the symbolism for Christianity. Whitman believed that all people are part of the same large group making up God. All the individual parts in turn making up this group of people are God themselves. If the plowman represents God, there is a much deeper meaning to this poem. The harvest mentioned in this poem is representative of the cycle of life for all people, because both are circular trends. The crops are harvested and then replaced by new ones, just as humans are taken by Death and then replaced by the new people of the world. This concept makes the plowman much more than an average person, but rather Death as a person. He is the one that takes the lives of all the other people of the world and is what causes the other people to fill their spots. This is the simple process that a farmer goes through in a field for a harvest, but it is also the same way that the circle of life works. The beauty of this poem is that Whitman is able to present all of these thoughts into a simple four line stanza. The style is very simple in that it does only consist of four lines and free verse style, which is what Whitman was best at. He did not need an artistic style to convey his ideas because the style flows directly from the message of the poem. This poem shows the two major parts of Whitman's writing of the everyman and Christianity.