Death and Love in Walt Whitman’s “Out of the Cradle...

Death and Love in Walt Whitman’s â€Å"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking† and Emily Dickinson’s â€Å"Because I Could Not Stop For Death† According to Sigmund Freud’s theories, all of human instincts, energies, and motivations derive from two drives, the sexual and the death drives. The sexual drive initiates self-preservation and erotic instincts, while the death drive moves toward self-destruction and aggression. The death drive contains the individual’s unconscious desire to die, which implies seeking the destruction of the sexual drive. This is why, acording to Stephen P. Thornton, â€Å"Freud gave sexual drives an importance and centrality in human life, human actions, and human behavior† (Thornton). Thus, In Freudian terms, every decision†¦show more content†¦The answer he receives from the sea is the same repetitive message, â€Å"the low and delicious word death† (168). Hearing this painful song and the sea’s constant response brings the boy to his own experience, he begins to feel the pain himself releasing within him a flood of emotions which result in his awakenin g into maturity and his destiny as a poet: â€Å"For I, that was a child, my tongue’s use sleeping, now I have heard you,/ Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake† (146-147). From this beautiful song of love and death â€Å"Whitman derives an intense and somber lesson in mortality and inspiration† (Bauerlein). Out of the death of the bird comes the birth of a poet, and more specifically of a poem and of song. The final line of the poem â€Å"The sea whisper’d me.† (184), shows us the reality of the poet. Born from the experience of love echoed by its source, death. Death created a song of love and the sea confirmed the â€Å"original† death, or death as origin. These calls and responses are brought about by an awareness of the connection of nature to man. The poet, separated and yet tied to/created by nature, in turn creates a poem from love and death, one that reflects and rewrites this play of unity and separation, love and death, E ros and Thanatos. In Emily Dickinson’s poem the theme of love and death is treated differently, even with a touch of humor. The perspective is of some experiencing death first hand. The