# Going Somewhere explained — Leaves of Grass

> Chapter companion for Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman.

## What happens

The narrator recalls a conversation with a deceased woman friend, a scientist, who concluded that all knowledge and existence—geology, history, astronomy, evolution, metaphysics—point to a universal, onward progression: life as an endless march, all things bound and going somewhere.

## Themes in this chapter

### Death and Immortality

The friend is buried, yet her words live on as a 'memory-leaf,' suggesting enduring influence beyond death.

### Individuality and Self

The personal, intimate memory of a specific friend frames a universal truth about onward movement.

### Celebration of Nature and the Universe

The poem encompasses geologies, histories, astronomy, and the universes, all bound in a cosmic journey.

## Character check-ins

### Narrator

The speaker who memorializes the conversation with his friend.

### Death

Referenced implicitly through the friend's burial in an English grave.

## Key lines

> My science-friend, my noblest woman-friend, (Now buried in an English grave⁠—and this a memory-leaf for her dear sake,)

My dear friend, a woman of science, now dead and buried in England—I write this leaf in her memory.

_Establishes the elegiac tone and the source of the wisdom shared._

> Is, that we all are onward, onward, speeding slowly, surely bettering, Life, life an endless march, an endless army, (no halt, but it is duly over,) The world, the race, the soul⁠—in space and time the universes, All bound as is befitting each⁠—all surely going somewhere.

That everything is moving forward, slowly but surely improving—life is an endless procession, an unending army, never stopping but eventually ending—the world, humanity, the soul, and all universes are each properly bound and all certainly heading somewhere.

_Summarizes the friend's conclusion about universal progress and purpose._

## Links

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