Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

The Individual versus Collective

A key motif in “I Hear America Singing” relates to the relationship between the individual and the collective. This relationship plays out primarily in the polarity between everyday Americans and the United States as a larger whole. Throughout the poem, the speaker focuses on naming different types of individuals and affirming their unique qualities. Notably, the speaker emphasizes each individual’s occupation as their most essential characteristic. This strategy implies that what is most valuable about each individual relates primarily to the type of labor they do. Put differently, the speaker frames each individual’s value not in terms of intrinsic worth, but rather in terms of how they contribute to society at large. With this interpretation in mind, it becomes clear that the various individuals named throughout the poem all stand in relation to the larger formation to which they all contribute: America. It is precisely this relationship between individual and collective that the speaker announces when they open the poem by saying, “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear” (line 1). The individual “carols” they hear all combine into a collective “singing” that represents America as a whole.

“His”

Masculine pronouns appear with a high frequency for such a short poem, signaling the predominance of men. Taken together, the speaker uses masculine pronouns a total of thirteen times, which averages out to more than one instance per line. Significantly, the pronoun the speaker uses most frequently is not “he” or “him,” but the possessive pronoun, “his.” The reason “his” appears so often relates to a construction the speaker uses repeatedly to describe how a particular laborer sings “his” particular song. This construction appears most frequently in the poem’s early lines (lines 2–4):

   Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong,
   The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
   The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work.

The repeated use of “his” helps emphasize how what is distinct about each worker belongs to him and him alone. Put differently, the speaker underscores men’s autonomy. Compare this emphasis on male autonomy with the speaker’s only reference to women, in line 8:

   The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing.

This line implies self-ownership much less explicitly. Rather than using a parallel structure to refer to, say, the mother singing her song, the speaker uses the weaker, genitive construction: “the delicious singing of the mother.” With such a comparison in mind, the speaker’s bias toward men becomes quite clear. This bias, in turn, reflects a broader association that frames the American national spirit of hard work and individualism as essentially masculine.