Hector Sifuentes
Professor Brown
English 102
13 December 2014
The Vacuum: Symbol of Sorrow Have you ever lost someone you were close to? The loss of a loved one is a tough experience to go through and the poem, “The Vacuum” by Howard Nemerov, illustrates it in no better way. In the poem the speaker lost his wife and is constantly reminded of her by the old vacuum she used to use. Nemerov uses the speaker, setting, and figurative language to portray the grief and sorrow that death brings.
The speaker of the poem is a widower who is having trouble in dealing with his wife’s death. There is a vacuum in his house that used to belong to his wife. When his wife was still alive “she used to crawl, in the corner and under the stair” (line 12), vacuuming every little place. Now his wife has passed away and the house has gone to waste.
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Nemerov’s use of figurative language can be defined as anything but accidental. He uses it show to show this sense of gloom and misery. In the second line of the poem the speaker says, “the vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet” (line 2). The word sulk is being used in this line to describe the vacuum as if it were sad, giving it human attributes. This also reflects towards how the widower is feeling, both the vacuum and the husband “sulking” at the death of his wife. He then later says, “but when my old woman died her soul went into that vacuum cleaner” (line 7) as if his wife’s soul was literally sucked up by the vacuum. The widower sees his wife in that vacuum, but she isn’t there using it anymore and that brings him the most sorrow. The vacuum itself symbolizes life in that when one vacuums it becomes louder and louder as it gets near, but then the noise fades away as it passes. Life too becomes loud at its highest peak comparing it to the time the couple spent together, but when the noise fades away as a vacuum moves on, it compares to the death of the
“Pass On” written by Michael Lee is a free verse poem informing readers on grief, which is one of the most difficult obstacles to overcome not only when losing a loved one, but also in life itself. “Pass On” successfully developed this topic through the setting of an unknown character who explains his or her experience of grief. Despite Lee never introducing this character, readers are given enough information to know how they are overcoming this difficult obstacle. In fact, this unknown character is most likely the writer himself, indirectly explaining his moments of grief. One important piece of information Lee provides is the fact that he has experienced loss twice, one with his grandfather and the other a friend who was murdered by the
In “Whoever We Are, Loss Finds us and Defines Us”, by Anna Quindlen, she brings forth the discussion grief's grip on the lives of the living. Wounds of death can heal with the passing of time, but in this instance, the hurt lives on. Published in New York, New York on June 5, 1994, this is one of many Quindlen published in the New York Times, centered on death's aftermath. This article, written in response to the death of Quindlen’s sister-in-law, and is focused on an audience who has, currently is, or will experience death. Quindlen-a columnist for the New York Times and Newsweek, Pulitzer Prize winner and author-has written six bestselling novels (Every Last One, Rise and Shine, Object Lessons, One True Thing, and Black and Blue) and has been published in the New York Times and Newsweek.
The author is faced with the struggle of coming to terms with his homosexuality, which parallels the “internal” struggle of the form of the poem. The opening sentence of the poem, “In the hall of mirrors nobody speaks,” (Cole 1) sets the gloomy tone through the author’s use of imagery to create before the reader a silent dark hallway with mirrors. The other attribute that describes the bath, “An ember smolders before hollowed cheeks,” (2) ...
When death has taken someone from your life, you think of everything you said to them, your last words, memories, and the talks that happened. During this assignment, one will see the grieving process from me about a tenant that I took care of, and the impact this lady’s passing away, left me. Polan and Taylor (2015) says “Loss challenges the person’s priorities and importance of relationships.” (pg 226) When an individual loses someone that you see everyday and take care of, this effects you because, you build a relationship and get to know each other on a personal level. When my tenant was passing away it was painful. I didn’t know what to feel when I seen what was happening and knew what was taking place.
A vacuum cleaner is a device that uses an air pump to suck up dirt into a dust bag for later disposal. In Howard Nemerov's "The Vacuum," a widowed husband mourns the death of his wife while he observes their vacuum in his quiet house. As he studies the vacuum he notices it "sulks in the corner closet" (line 2). His observation sets the tone for the poem and personifying the household device. As he continues to personify the vacuum throughout the poem, he notes the lifelessness of the vacuum, memories of his wife using the vacuum, and how "life is cheap as dirt" (line 13) but dirt is still everywhere even when she is gone. The speaker in "The Vacuum," uses the vacuum cleaner to symbolize his wife's death, the connection to his wife, and how he perceives his life after her death.
Simile and word choice act as key literary features connecting the husband’s dead wife and the vacuum. The speaker is in so much pain that he says in lines 8-9 “I can’t bear/ to see the bag swell like a belly”. The experience that comes to the speaker when doing his wife’s former job of vacuuming brings the speaker instant grief as it reminds him of his wife. This is why the speaker cannot bring himself to do any cleaning and hear the “howl” of the vacuum
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First, the vacuum symbolizes his wife who has died. He hints that his wife has died before he decides to tell it in the poem. He says, “Its bag limp as a stopped lung, its mouth / Grinning into the floor (3-4). He uses the bag on the vacuum to represent her lungs which just stopped working ultimately causing her death. The vacuum is grinning which he has
passed away” holds a significantly sombre and melancholy tone. This is juxtaposed to the living
The habitant, within this poem, is able to personify his home because he is aware of its identity and characteristics. This is demonstrated when he explains that by looking on the outside “through some aperture” he has the ability to see all that the machine is. The habitant can view the machine as a person, where “it sleeps, it weeps… it laughs”. He is able to see the machine for what it really is, he adopts a view and understanding that is much more complex than what other’s would adopt. By learning about the situation, and familiarizing yourself with it, you can see the truth.
The speaker uses the vacuum as a symbol throughout the poem. In the beginning, the vacuum is an object used for cleaning the house. The speaker says, “The house is so quiet now / The vacuum cleaner
...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.
The interpretations of what comes after death may vary greatly across literature, but one component remains constant: there will always be movement. In her collection Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey discusses the significance, permanence and meaning of death often. The topic is intimate and personal in her life, and inescapable in the general human experience. Part I of Native Guard hosts many of the most personal poems in the collection, and those very closely related to the death of Trethewey’s mother, and the exit of her mother’s presence from her life. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.
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