ANIMALS

- Walt Whitman
SUMMARY
In the poem animals, the poet has described his will to become an animal because he thinks
animals are far better than human beings. Human beings are greedy and full of jealousy
against each other. But animals are calm and self-contained. The animals are happy with what
they have. They never complain about miseries and sorrows. On the other hand human beings
complain about their miseries. They give more importance to the rich and strong people, stay
restless because of their wrongdoings and run behind the luxurious things of this world.
Whereas animals are honest about their relations and don’t give importance to a particular
class. They live a life which is full of honesty and less of greed and jealousy.

Central idea of the poem

The central idea of the poem is to point out that animals are better than human beings as they
possess qualities that humans lack or have forgotten. The most important theme of the poem
is not to praise how good animals are, but to compare humans with them in order to highlight
the flaws of their nature. Humans possessed all these qualities but they have now lost them.
Poetic Devices
Anaphora – They, Not
Repetition – They do not, Not one, long and long
Alliteration – make me, wonder where
Metaphor – tokens of myself

Extra Question
1. Why does the poet like animals?
Pg.No.84 Question 1, 2, 3(mark it as 2,3,4)
5. What makes the poet sick?
6. It is not complaining but accepting a situation, the key to happiness in life. Elaborate in
context of the poem Animals’.
Read the following extracts carefully and answer the questions that follow.
A. Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
a) What does the poet call a mania here?
b) How are the animals not dissatisfied?
c) Which word in the passage means ‘species’?
d) Identify the poetic devices in the above extract
B. I wonder where they get those tokens, Did I pass that way huge times ago and
negligently drop them?
(a) What does the poet wonder?
(b) Why does the poet say that he negligently dropped them?
(c) Which word in the stanza means “carelessness”?
(d) Identify the poetic device used in the extract.