In "A Noiseless Patient Spider", Whitman uses a first person perspective to communicate the story to us. Through first person, we become Whitmans observer, watching the spider with him and through him. Our perception is limited to Whitman himself, observing the spider in it's patient work, analyzing it with his mind. For instance we are not allowed to see things through the spiders eyes, as it weaves away, unbeknowist as to what it is thinking or that which motivates it to do it's patient work, we only see Whitman's idea. Perhaps the spider is simply following impulses that drive it, and it hungers realizing

Lastly we come to modern fiction versus mythological fiction (rehashed that is). By the word modern, I mean that which isn't ancient/classical, or preclassical literature. Whitman uses an altogether modern style in his poem, the specific elements utilized being that which I’ve covered in the above paragraphs. Whitman contemplates himself (his existence) through the parable of a simple organism, a spider, spinning it's web tirelessly to achieve a desired end result, or goal. This he finds, is akin to his inquiry into his own soul and mortality. The individual strands and sections of the web must all be weaved separately before they can all come together to form the actual web, the spider being unable to weave the entire thing at once. Whitman, in order to understand his life, must work in the same way by learning different ideals and personal truths through science, technology and philosophy - all small pieces of the larger puzzle that must all eventually come together in some finite result, comprehendible to man.

"Myth" is told in the form of a social discourse, a dialogue. The tradition of this form of communication has been passed down to us through history from the ancient Greeks. The dialogue, as opposed to standard narration, allows us the liberty of receiving the ideas and notions of the story not through the consciousness of any isolated individual, but from the contrast that emerges naturally between the discourse of two opposing individuals. We get to hear both sides of the story this way and base our decisions on how the characters respond to one another. We are not biased towards Oedipus, because we are not seeing through him, nor are we biased towards the Sphinx. You se

Some topics in this essay:
Oedipus Sphinx, Spider Whitman, Sphinx Oedipus, Spider Myth, third person, , Patient Spider, Noiseless Patient, patient spider, noiseless patient spider, speaking spider, person narration, form social, biased towards, oedipus sphinx, it's patient, elements utilized, noiseless patient,