# Chapter 37: The Prisoner's Lament explained — Leaves of Grass

> Chapter companion for Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

## What happens

The narrator embodies the suffering of prisoners, outcasts, and the sick, experiencing their pain and confinement as his own, blurring the line between self and other.

## Themes in this chapter

### Comradeship and Love

The narrator's radical empathy and unity with the suffering, feeling their pain as his own.

### Individuality and Self

The self expands to include the marginalized and oppressed, questioning the boundaries of identity.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

The narrator identifies with prisoners, mutineers, and cholera patients, feeling their pain and shame.

## Key lines

> I am possess’d! Embody all presences outlaw’d or suffering, See myself in prison shaped like another man, And feel the dull unintermitted pain.

I am overwhelmed, taking on the forms of all outlaws and sufferers, seeing myself imprisoned as another person, and enduring their constant pain.

_The narrator claims to embody the experiences of the marginalized._

> Not a mutineer walks handcuff’d to jail but I am handcuff’d to him and walk by his side

Every mutineer led to jail in handcuffs is accompanied by me, also handcuffed and walking beside him.

_The narrator shares the physical and emotional burden of the prisoner._

> Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp but I also lie at the last gasp, My face is ash-color’d, my sinews gnarl, away from me people retreat.

Every cholera patient dying is me dying too, my face pale, my muscles contorted, and people shun me.

_The narrator experiences the final moments of a cholera victim, including social rejection._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters/37
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/leaves_of_grass_se/chapters