"Song of Myself": Some Favorite Lines

1) "The camera and plate are prepared, the lady must sit for her daguerreotype,
The bride unrumples her white dress, the minutehand of the clock moves slowly,
The opium eater reclines with rigid head and just-opened lips,
The prostitute drags her shawl, her bonnet bobs on her tipsy and pimpled neck,
The crowd laughs at her blackguard oaths, the men jeer and wink to each other,
(Miserable! I do not laugh at your oaths nor jeer you)"

(p.10)
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For the section assigned to us, these lines stood out to me the most for their provoking imagery and sense of direct comparison. Whitman definitely seems to go for concrete details to add to worldly sense, but there is still the abstract, key ideas of likeness and comparison between different ideas (like the "free" vs the "civilized" or the "outside" vs the "inside").

In the first section, I feel like there is a direct comparison between the bride and the prostitute. The lady has to sit still and for a long amount of time before the picture from the camera can be developed. It must be uncomfortable to not only stay in a certain position for such a long time ("the minutehand of the clock moves slowly"), but to also stay like that in bridal dress? It could be worse, I suppose, but there's still a sense of rigid stillness there that can reflect off the sense of "orderly fashion"; a bride's dress is white to sort of symbolize the purity of the wife-to-be. But this purity does not seem to be of a natural source; society orders women to abide to such standards -- I would also think being confined to such a life would leave "dust" on such supposed white cleanliness.

On the opposite spectrum, there's the prostitute who seems to lazily, but freely, wander about with what can be considered a sloppy sense of style. She does not uphold herself to the standards of the bride, but, because she does not do so, people see her as unfitting (and yet fitting for sexual desires, knowing that she is free from that social norm -- so people are okay with breaking free secretly once in a while?). One thing I also noticed is how she is said to possess "blackguard oaths". To me, the "black" contrasts with the white dress of the former lady, with the black reflecting the prostitute's "unclean" morals or values. Oddly though, society, in a strange way, accepts this only because of the outlet it gives men to experience a sense of "freedom" or pleasure when they feel the need to do so. And yet, the speaker

Nevertheless, while it is seen to be that prostitution is form of "loafing", it is a choice that is more "free". To get paid to not only give but also to receive pleasure sure sounds like an easy, fun job -- once one gets past the social consequences. But to loaf comes with that, though it's not much to worry about if one seeks to be close to one's senses.