<u>Metaphors in “O Captain! My Captain!” by Whitman:</u>
The poem is an elegy mourning the death of the American President Abraham Lincoln. Written by Walt Whitman in 1865, it is an extended metaphor honoring the 16th President of America and regretting his demise.
A metaphor is an implied Comparison. The poem is an extended metaphor, which means it is a comparison between two dissimilar things continuing in sentences and stanzas in the poem.
In the poem, the ship has been compared to the United States of America, having gone through the civil war and coming back unvanquished, victorious to receive a cheerful welcome by the masses.Though the war is won, the captain has lost his life.
The poet laments the loss of the captain of the ship who is ‘lying cold and dead‘ provoking sorrow and grief and leaving the poet sad. The captain here refers to the President who was the president during the American Civil War and was assassinated while in office that is why the captain is lying dead on the ship.
