formulate a rationale for why Whitman would write a book about a man ruining his life by indulging in intemperance. At the time, working-class individuals who read newspapers like Benjamin's were becoming interested in tales of temperance. About 12 percent of American novels published during the 1830s concerned temperance fiction. Conforming to these social demands of the time period, Benjamin published Whitman's story in his newspaper as a continuous series. This kept readers consistently wanting to read every issue, and more buyers of Benjamin’s paper. Hendler and Castiglia mention how Whitman did indeed oppose legal restraints on alcohol consumption because he believed they would not prove effectual, and how he was not "one of those who would deny people any sense of delight." However, some of his literature up to 1840 had been used to discourage all forms of intemperance. Therefore, it is safe to say that Whitman only believed temperance would succeed if it was reformed. This is why Franklin Evans has been referred to as a supplement to America's temperance reform. It is Whitman's direct example of why intemperance is such a dangerous act, and needed to be rectified with regulations different from those that already were not successful. Themes Success after struggle: Whitman conveys this theme through an entire novel of hardship. After battling times of intemperance since he first arrived in New York, Evans finally achieves some sort of satisfaction at the end. As a middle-aged man at the conclusion of the novel, Evans states: “So, at an age which was hardly upon the middle verge of life, I found myself possessed of a comfortable property; and, as the term is ‘unincumbered’ person-which means I have no wife to love me-no children to please me, and be the recipients of my own affection, and no domestic hearth around which we might gather, as the center of joy and delight.” (Whitman 107). Readers can see that for someone as ill-behaved as Evans, whose poor judgement lost him nearly everything in his life, amends could still be made. He came to terms with his life and set himself on a reformed path. It seemed as though nothing remotely good could come out of Evans's situation after lost jobs, wives, and money, but that would have taken away from Whitman's lesson that immense struggle will be balanced out with sort of success, or in Evans's case, content frame of