Emily Dickinson's 'The Vacuum'

This poem by Emily Dickinson written in 1863, is about a woman’s (Dickinson’s?) suppressed anger. This is an anger so strong and violent that it is symbolized as a gun. The gun hides in a corner and the narrator exclaims that until the gun entered her life, her life stood still. The gun is a symbol of power, and is usually seen as a man’s tool for hunting, war and protection, but, for the narrator, it symbolizes a power that is possible should she choose to use it. In her time and even today it is difficult for women to express anger, one can only imagine how difficult it was in Dickinson’s time. This prejudice does oftentimes still exist for the modern woman if she is too verbal about her anger. The woman who dares speak her mind is often labeled a bitch and if she is an older woman an

It is hardly an item one would usually write a poem about. An Autumn day, a wildflower, a flitting butterfly, perhaps, but certainly not a poem about a vacuum cleaner. The main symbol in “The Vacuum” is the vacuum itself and it symbolizes the narrator’s beloved wife, an old woman who has died and has left him grieving for her. The narrator associates the vacuum with his wife because she was the one that utilized it during her daily chores. He imagines his wife’s soul inside the vacuum cleaner, and though his home has become dirty, he dares not use it because it will remind him of when his wife was alive. Now, like his wife, the vacuum is quiet and lifeless and hidden from him in a closet. He likens the vacuum’s bag, when in use, to her lungs symbolizing his wife’s living breaths. The vacuum is a symbol in the figurative sense as well because the definition of the word vacuum also means a void, an emptiness. The wife’s death has left a void in the old man’s