Elizabeth Keckley: Elizabeth Keckley was Mrs lincoln's dressmaker and in the process of working for the First Lady they became friends. Elizabeth goes through her days working at the White House and living with the Lewis’s, celebrating the victory of the war being won. Mrs. Lincoln was to attend ford's theater to see a show with Mr. Lincoln , but Mrs Lincoln didn't want Elizabeth to help her dress that day. Elizabeth states, “Oh, memorable day! Oh, memorable night! Never before was joy so violently contrasted with sorrow.” In this she is saying that they celebrated the winning of the war during the day and then at night Lincoln was shot, she says this by explaining that the north wanted to be happy about the winning of the war but the victory was bittersweet because they lost their president. Elizabeth looked up to him like a “Demigod” and then he was gone and she couldn't do anything but help his wife and children morn. The tone that Elizabeth uses is mostly happy and festive because it is her doing day to day tasks and then the union won the war. The north was in the middle of their celebration when the tone changed to dark, depressing, and mournful. Once Lincoln died the entire tone changed with Elizabeth unable to sleep and having to comfort a woman who's husband just died, the story got rather dark …show more content…
It is about the victory of the war and the festival that came after it. It states “The ship is weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won”, this talks about how the union won the war. It also states “O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead", this explains how even though they won the war they lost one of their leaders of whom led them through the war and steered them to victory. The tone of this poem is darker than Elizabeth’s because Whitman really focuses on the loss of Lincoln as opposed to a day to day life which is what his vignette was