Spheres of Similarity

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry by Walt Whitman is a crescendo of ideas that effectively tells a story allowing a reader to enter the reality of the writer. Whitman begins Crossing Brooklyn Ferry with colorful prose about how although people are very different, we all look at the same tides and are essentially part of the same moving current. Whitman says that we are, ?The simple, compact, well-joined scheme-myself disintegrated, every one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme??(99, 2). Whitman is a man perplexed by the idea of individuality within society and in this poem he states that although everyone travels on the Brooklyn ferry, there seems to be disintegration within the integration of society. As the poem progresses a dichotomy evolves as Whitman goes from the general to the specific. He starts the poem by noticing that we are all part of the same 'scheme', but then in chapter five asks the question of, ?What is it then between us?? (101,5). As Whitman searches for the answer to this question of individuality there is a feeling that Whitman himself is alone and disintegrated from the world. He travels through this poem as people travel across the river trying to get from once place to the next. Much of this poem is written in the past tense which give Crossing Brooklyn Ferry a sad overtone because we empathize with Whitman as he strguules with the idea of disintegration and society.
In chapter four Whitman says, ?These, and all else, were to me the same as they are to you?The time will come, though I stop here to-day and to-night?(101,4). Chapter four is very brief but yet precise in the way that Whitman sets up the reader for the transition here from the general appreciation of his environment, to the idea that we will all someday die, but the images we seen in this place will not change. Chapter four and five here remind me of chapter seventeen from Song of Myself when Whitman says, ?These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and lands, they are not original with me, If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing next to nothing??(30,17). The transition in Song of Myself from the general to the specific is far more extensive than it is in Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, but the rhyme scheme and general meter stay the same.
The quote earlier when Whitman states ?to-day and to-night? interests me because never before have I seen someone give activity to a multi-syllable word. Whitman looks as if he is actually saying that he stopped by to day something and to night something. One could believe he says this because earlier he states, ?The time will come, though I stop here?,? this could mean that he is talking about death and birth. The to day aspect could be representing the people that come to travel on the Brooklyn Ferry for the first time which is birth of experience, and the to night could be the people like Whitman who have already had their glory days seeing the world and have come to the memory of the ferry 'to night' or to die. The tone and feeling created through much of the poem is predicated upon the usage of the past tense. Page 100 represents this as Whitman says, "So I felt," "I was one of a crowd," "I was refreshed," "I stood, yet was hurried,"I too many and many a time crossed the river of old." Whitman is saying that he has already has his time on the Ferry and now it is time for a new generation, but what is it that will separate the next generation of travelers from me?
The climax here is when Whitman looks at himself introspectively and says, ?I am he who knew what it was to be evil??(102,6), he separates himself from society and say that this is why I am different from you, and this is why we are different entities. Not because what we see is different, but because of who we are on the inside. Whitman describes life well in the lines, ?The same old role, the role that is what we make it, as great as we like, Or as small as we like, or both great and small?(103,6). What could be taken from these lines is Whitman saying that in life one has a choice, what separates you from me and me from you is not what we look at or where we are, but rather who we are on the inside and that life is what we make of it.