A Feminist Approach To Whitman's Leaves Of Grass

Feminism is an important subject in Leaves of Grass. Previous studies of Leaves of Grass mainly concentrated on the meaning of the self, the sex image and the democracy and so on. Critics seldom do systematic and concrete studies on feminism in Whitman's poems. This thesis attempts to interpret Whitman from a different perspective—by contextualizing Whitman's poems describing women. We may realize that Whitman is a feminist and his work empowers his female readers.Broadly defined, feminist criticism examines the ways in which the literature confirms or weakens or furthermore destroys the economic, political, social and psychological oppression of women. There are three strategic concepts in feminist theorizing, and they are patriarchy, the sex-gender system, and phallocentrism.Silence, the mother, difference and sexuality/desire are the recurring themes. Centered on these recurring themes, Whitman fights for women from different aspects. Firstly, Whitman is a daring and subversive defender of sex in literature. He devoted many poems to sex and women including prostitutes. The traditional relationship between sex and women is greatly subverted in his poem To A Common Prostitute. The prostitute in the poem is treated as a social person without any discrimination rather than a sex machine. He also found the powerful, scientific and physiological weapons to defend his opinions about sex. Just like a physiologist, Whitman wrote many poems to eulogize sex, body and women.Secondly, he described the free gender and democratic gender equality through blurring the gender limits. The"he"and the"she"are democratically equal. In addition, Whitman paid attention to the hierarchical language to defend his democratic gender equality.Thirdly, in Whitman's opinion, women as a"mother"are indispensable and primary to the whole world. Women are the mother of the whole world. If there are no women, the world does not exist. He fights against patriarchy—the male-centered and controlled situation in the family from the following three aspects:"mother"as the carrier of life, the symbol of peace and love, and the bearer of the human disaster.Fourthly, the chapter is concerned with Whitman's feminist discourse through introducing Whitman's feminist friends and how they defended each other in their work. Whitman experienced the women's rights movement and made friends with many radical feminists. He was influenced by the feminists and also learned a lot from them. He and his feminist friends defended each other's feminist opinions in their work and made contribution to the women's rights movement. They are closely related both in life and in career.As a conclusion, Whitman's poems embody the feminist opinions well enough. And meanwhile the poem fights fiercely for women's rights in different aspects. Through his depiction, we can easily get the themes of his poems—the democratic equality between women and men in all cultural domains: familial, social, political, artistic and so on. Walt Whitman is a true feminist.The present study hopes to shed light on the feminist analyses of Leaves of Grass to further help readers be aware of the value of feminism in Whitman's poems.