O Captain! MY Captain! - Walt Whitman [Line-by-line explanation]

Line by Line explanation.

Lines 1-2

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

• The speaker is shouting out to his captain (“O Captain!”) that they’ve finally made it home after a frightening trip.
• They were on a ship that survived, or “weathered,” strong winds (a.k.a. “racks”).
• They’re probably tired after such a grueling voyage, but apparently they’ve succeeded in their mission, or what the speaker calls their “prize.” Whatever this mission or prize was, we know that it wasn’t easy to get.

Lines 3-4

          The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

• So the speaker is a sailor on the ship, and the ship isn’t just yet safe in the harbor (which would be a good place to safely “park” a boat).
• But the boat is in sight of the land, and there are people on the shore cheering and ringing church bells as they approach (hip-hip-hooray!).
• The people on the shore watch the boat come in.
• Although keel usually refers to a ridge that goes along the underside of the boat, the word can also refer to the boat as a whole, as it does in line 4. When a part of something is used to stand for a whole (for example, “all hands on deck” means all the people should be on deck, not just their hands), this is called a synecdoche. 
• In contrast to the happy people on land, the boat is described like a ghost ship: “grim and daring.”
• The speaker is foreshadowing, subtly telling the reader in advance that something is going to happen and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Lines 5-8

But O heart! heart! heart!
   O the bleeding drops of red,
      Where on the deck my Captain lies,
         Fallen cold and dead.

• The sailor calls out again, but this time it isn’t for the captain.
• He belts out the word “heart,” and this could mean that he is shouting out a) to his captain to keep heart, as in not to give up, or b) to his own heart, as if in pain. 
• We think you can read this either way. If you read it the first way, with the heart representing the captain’s will, then you’re dealing with a symbol, as some part of the captain is used to represent an abstract quality (his will or courage).
• If you read it the second way, though, and think the speaker is calling out to his own heart, then you’ve got an apostrophe on your hands, friend-o. This is a call to an abstract thing that can’t possibly answer back. It’s a cliché to speak from the heart, but, really, hearts have no mouths, so they don’t speak very well.
• When you think heart, though, you do think blood. It turns out that there is a lot of it here.
• All of a sudden, drops of blood are on the deck of the ship, and the speaker notices that his captain is dead. Bummer
  
  
  

  Lines 9-12

  O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
  Rise up–for you the flag is flung–for you the bugle trills;
  For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths–for you the shores a-crowding;
  For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
  • The sailor comes to the dead captain’s side and begs him to rise again. Because the speaker is addressing someone (or something) who can no longer respond to him, this is known as an apostrophe.
  • And why should the captain re-animate his dead self? Well, the speaker says that all the people on shore are cheering for the captain. 
  • The sailor lists the ways in which the people are celebrating: raising the flag, playing horns, holding flowers, and calling out to the captain. It’s a real hullaballoo.
  • To say that the crowd has “eager faces” is another use of a synecdoche. It’s not just their faces that are eager, really. Their faces are used to represent the whole of their excited attitude toward this captain. They think he’s a righteous dude.

  Lines 13-16

  Here Captain! dear father!
    This arm beneath your head;
      It is some dream that on the deck,
        You’ve fallen cold and dead.
• The sailor takes the dead captain in his arms and calls the captain “father,” although the man probably isn’t really his father.
• Still, the speaker has intense feelings for this man, whose head is on his arm. That’s probably not a relaxing position to lie in, but sadly the captain doesn’t feel the discomfort.
• The speaker says he must be dreaming. He can’t accept the reality that the captain died just as they reached home.

Lines 17-18

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

• The dead captain, unsurprisingly, doesn’t respond to the sailor’s cries. With another synecdoche, the speaker focuses on the captain’s lips to represent his general state of death.
• Again, the captain is referred to as the speaker’s father, underscoring their bond. 
• Sadly, the color has left the captain’s face and he has no pulse. Here, “will” means the ability to do something, like move.

Lines 19-20

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

• The ship finally arrives safely in the harbor and drops its anchor. Its trip is done.
• The speaker reminds us that the trip was difficult and dangerous, but the mission was a success.
• “Victor ship” here means the victorious ship, not a ship named Victor. 
• Why is it victorious? Well, it’s won its object, met its goal. Hurray!

Lines 21-24

                   Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
  But I, with mournful tread,
    Walk the deck my Captain lies,
      Fallen cold and dead.

• And now that the speaker is in the harbor, he calls out to the shores and the bells to party down. Since neither shores nor bells are actually alive, this appeal to inanimate objects represents more apostrophes by our speaker.
• Why would just the speaker just be interested in the shores, though? Even though, on a boat, the shore would be the closest part of land, here the speaker means for the whole country to celebrate.
• Using a part of the land to represent the whole is again (you guessed it) synecdoche.
• Really, though, the speaker uses the shores as a symbol to represent the crowds of people standing there. He wants them to keep cheering and celebrating the homecoming of the ship and the success of the mission.
• While the crowd celebrates, the sailor remains on the ship, pacing sadly next to his dead captain.

All My Sons - Arthur Miller [Summary]

Joe Keller, a successful businessman, lives comfortably with his wife, Kate, and son, Chris, in a suburban American neighborhood. They have only one sadness in their lives – the loss of their other son, Larry, who went missing in World War II. After three years, Kate still clings to the hope that her son is alive. Chris would like her to give up that hope because he wants to marry Ann, an old neighbor and Larry's former fiancée.

Ann arrives. Kate, sensing the reason for her visit, gets a little touchy. We learn that Ann's father is in prison for a crime he committed while working in Joe's factory. Faced with a batch of defective machine parts, he patched them and sent them out, causing the death of 21 pilots during the war. Turns out that Joe was also accused of this crime and convicted, but he was exonerated (set free) during the appeal. Steve went to prison; Joe returned home and made his business bigger and better.

Soon after Ann's arrival, her brother George follows, straight from visiting his father in prison. He knows what Chris has in mind and is totally against him marrying Ann. Joe and Kate do their best to charm George into submission, but finally it's Ann who sends him away. She wants to marry Chris no matter what.

The marriage of Chris and Ann is becoming a reality – and Kate can't handle it, because it means Larry is truly dead. And if Larry is dead, she tells Chris, it's because his own father killed him, since Larry was also a pilot. Chris finally confronts his father's guilt in shipping those defective parts.

But Chris won't do anything about it. He won't even ask his father to go to prison. Ann, who turned her back on her own father for the same reason, insists that Chris take a hard line. Joe Keller goes inside to get his things. A gunshot is heard. He's killed himself.

All My Sons Act 1 Summary

• The stage directions describe the Keller home as situated in an American suburb. It's roughly August 1947.
• The house is comfortable and well-kept, as is the yard. Downstage left stands an apple tree stump. The trunk and branches are toppled beside it.
• Joe Keller is in his yard reading the want ads. He's a self-made businessman of about sixty. Doctor Jim Bayliss, his neighbor, is about forty. He's reading the paper too.
• Joe's neighbor on the other side, Frank, enters. He's 32.
• The neighbors chat about the weather and the want ads.
• Frank notices the felled tree. It was struck by lightning in the night. He observes how strange it is that the tree planted in memory of Larry was struck down in his birth month. Larry is Joe's son. He would have been twenty-seven this August, which Frank remembers because he's working on Larry's horoscope.
• What Frank is trying to figure out – at the request of Kate, Joe's wife – is whether the day on which Larry was reported missing was his "favorable day," when, astrologically speaking, odds are he wouldn't die.
• This piques skeptical Jim's interest – he doesn't buy it.
• Talk turns to Annie, a young woman who used to live next door. She's visiting the Kellers and is upstairs asleep for now.
• Jim makes a quip about how the block could use a pretty face. Just then his fat wife enters, nagging him about a patient's phone call.
• Frank's wife Lydia comes in, also curious about Annie. Is she engaged? She was Larry's betrothed.
• Chris Keller enters. He's 32. He starts reading the book section.
• Joe and Chris start to talk about Larry's tree when eight-year-old neighbor Bert enters. He's Joe's "deputy" and tattles on some of the other kids on the street. He asks to see the jail Joe keeps in his basement, but Joe won't let him.
• Bert exits; talk turns back to the tree. Mom saw it last night, says Chris. She was outside when it broke, then she came in and cried.
• Kate Keller still believes Larry is coming back, even though it's been three years. Chris thinks they should puncture the illusion; Joe wants to keep it intact.
• Chris sits his dad down. Listen up, pop, he says – I'm going to propose to Annie. But Mom still thinks she's Larry's girl.
• Chris threatens to leave town – and the family business – if his father doesn't encourage his mother to support this marriage. Joe is shocked.
• Kate enters, a woman in her early fifties. She's happy the tree blew down, because it affirms for her that Larry is still alive. They were in a rush to memorialize him with that tree.
• Kate and Chris tiptoe around a discussion of Annie. Kate doesn't want to acknowledge that Chris might be courting her.
• Kate recalls a dream she had about Larry last night. When she heard the wind, she imagined it was Larry flying by in his fighter plane.
• Kate turns to Joe and wags her finger at him: they shouldn't have planted that tree. They gave up too soon.
• When Chris exits to get his mother an aspirin, she turns on Joe. Chris better not be planning to propose to Annie. Joe says he doesn't know anything more than she does – an outright lie.
• Kate wants Joe to believe with her that Larry will come back. He asks her to calm down.
• They're again interrupted by Bert, who brings up the jail. Kate reacts sharply, telling him there is no jail there.
• Ann enters from the house. She's beautiful and beautifully dressed. She's been living in New York.
• When Chris shows his admiration for Ann, Kate comments lightly that she has put on a little weight.
• Ann remarks on the little changes in the neighborhood: trees, a missing hammock. She's introduced to Jim, who now lives in her old house.
• When Ann mentions Larry, Kate is relieved. Eventually she asks Ann directly if she's waiting for Larry. Ann says no.
• Frank enters and dispels the tension. A little small talk, and then Frank mentions Ann's father. He's in prison.
• Ann is sensitive; she wants to know if the neighbors still talk about her father and his crime. Chris and Joe say no. Ann remembers the neighbors screaming "Murderers" at her father, Steve, and at Joe.
• In a long monologue, Joe recalls the day he was cleared of the crime. He and Steve had been accused of selling cracked cylinder heads to the Air Force, causing twenty-one planes to crash. Joe was exonerated; Ann's father was imprisoned. When Joe returned home, he walked down the street with defiance and pride. He suggests the same for Steve when he's released.
• Ann admits that neither she nor her brother keep in touch with their father anymore. They blame him for knowingly shipping out faulty parts, resulting in the death of so many American pilots. She wonders aloud whether this was responsible for Larry's death.
• That really sets Kate off. Ann should never say that again.
• Keller tells his version of the story. There was a mad rush for parts, and when the cylinders came out cracked, cowardly Steve just decided to send them out. He was afraid that Joe and the military would be displeased with the mistake, so he kept quiet about it.
• Chris breaks in. He just wants a change of subject. So they talk about steak and champagne instead, and Keller exits.
• The long-awaited proposal occurs. Chris asks; Ann says yes. Now they just have to figure out how to tell Kate.
• Chris has something to get off his chest. It's about the war. Leading a company, he lost all his men. Then he returned to the States and felt that nobody noticed; that the sacrifice of the men who died meant nothing substantial to the people at home. He has survivor's guilt. Chris feels as though he doesn't deserve life and doesn't deserve her.
• Ann sets him straight – he does deserve her. And he better kiss her right now.
• Joe interrupts them. There's a phone call from George, Ann's brother.
• Chris tells Joe the news of his engagement to Ann. But Joe is preoccupied with this phone call. He's afraid George will want to open up his father's case again, and that Ann is on his side.
• Ann emerges. George is coming there to settle something. He wouldn't say what.
• This rattles Joe and Kate. Kate tells Joe to be smart.