Student Question
How does Whitman view the individual "soul" in the context of technology? How does this compare to the men's relationship with technology in Hemingway's story?
Quick answer:
Whitman views the individual soul as inherently eternal, transcending technology and science, and aligning with a cosmic identity connected to God-in-nature. He places the soul above technological advancements, suggesting that everything has a deeper, spiritual significance. In contrast, Hemingway's characters experience a sense of alienation and disconnection, feeling isolated and disenchanted by life's impermanence and the impact of technology, highlighting a stark difference in the perceived relationship between individuals and technological progress.
One of Walt Whitman's biographers writes that although he claimed to be the poet of science and progress, he was "at heart opposed to Darwinism but afraid to say so openly." His "new religion" came less from science and far more from the Hebrew prophets although, it is written, Whitman tried to fool himself through " some sort of Heglian sophistry." Whitman was a Humanist, extolling man as the measure of all things; yet there is also some of the Romanticist in him, too, in the lyrical nature of subjects of his poetry. In his poem "Eidolons" [idealized persons], Whitman extols man optimistically,
Beyond the lectures learn’d professor,
Beyond thy telescope or spectroscope observer keen, beyond all mathematics,
Beyond the doctor’s surgery, anatomy, beyond the chemist with his chemistry,
The entities of entities, eidolons.
Indeed, Whitman perceives man as a cosmic personality who attains a certain immortality by identifying itself with God-in-nature. For Whitman, everything has an eternal soul, and all objects have "reference to the Soul."
In contrast to this optimistic ideal, Nick's youthful illusions lead him to rationalize that nothing is “absolute,” nothing is “irrevocable.” While he and his friend Bill talk and drink whiskey, Bill reveals his disenchantment with love: "Once a man's married he's absolutely bitched...He hasn't got anything more. Nothing." In his turn, Nick describes his relationship with Marjorie as like "the three-day blows [that] come now and rip all the leaves off the trees," leaving them, too, with nothing. Thus, in Hemingway's story, there is a sense of disconnection and alienation. Man is ultimately alone--not a cosmic personality--to cope with the nothingness of life, and its treacherous storms.
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