Summary Of The Vacuum By Howard Nemerov

Symbolism brings meaning to otherwise basic ideas or objects. A vacuum cleaner at its most basic use is a cleaning tool used in homes and buildings worldwide. In “The Vacuum” by Howard Nemerov, the vacuum cleaner comes to represent so much more than an everyday cleaning tool. In the three verse five line poem, an old vacuum in the closet is used to represent the speaker’s dead wife. She was the homemaker and now that she is gone the house is very dirty. The speaker is full of grief over his wife’s death and uses the vacuum in this short poem to commemorate his wife and what she stood for. “The Vacuum” uses figurative language such as word choice, symbolism, personification, and simile to express a theme of sorrow over the death of a loved one.
The title is simply “The Vacuum” rather than “The Vacuum Cleaner” because it is now a useless appliance sitting in a closet rather than something that is used to clean. The title perfectly sets up the poem as the

He comes to terms with the fact that “I’ve lived this way long enough” (6). He is finally beginning to come to the realization that the grief of his dead wife has been consuming him. Personification and symbolism is once again employed in the lines 7-8 as the author believes his wife is a part of the vacuums overall being stating “when my old woman died her soul/ went into that vacuum cleaner”. Now that his wife is dead the vacuum itself is no longer a cleaning tool and is now simply a dead object.
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