Whitman has
many posts regarding his experiences at the war hospital. He deals with the
concept of the unknown masses and the lack of identity they may feel. Feet to
the isles, heads to the wall, the only way they communicate is through moaning,
grunting – almost animalistic. They are swept of humanity; they have no
language and no control of their bodies. Of course not all patients were this
broken, but a layer of them were. Whitman describes the confusing situation
when a loved one of a patient cannot find said patient because they do not have
the correct categorical information. The dehumanization of labeling people as
numbers etc. defines them as a thing to be located, not a person to be helped.
Granted, some soldiers experienced traumatic face disfiguration, which would
make recognition on a facial level nearly impossible. I read absurdity in the
lines about a man looking for his brother, having to return home after a weeks
search, returning to a letter from his brother providing the correct address. This
system doesn’t seem too far off from how difficult it is to accomplish things
through a bureaucracy. What is the humane way to do this with little resources?
Even today
we have films come out about fearing being put into a system to be mislabeled
as another, losing the identity you know for something you don’t. I find his
posts on the masses interesting in relation to identity and perhaps a
collective lack of identity. If song of myself asserts one to learn about oneself,
what good is undone through real experiences like loss of identity through a
bureaucratic system?
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