[mohammad_4909]

The Vacuum
In “The Vacuum,” by Howard Nemerov, figures of speech are utilized throughout the poem, in order for the reader to visualize the speaker’s memories and to experience the speaker’s emotions. The vacuum, to the speaker, the husband, symbolizes the memory of his deceased wife. When the speaker sees the vacuum, the speaker remembers his wife and their life together. Whenever he sees the vacuum, he describes his memories through figures of speech such as personification, similes, phors, and traditional symbols to describe his emotions of his wife’s absence, which allows the reader to experience and respond to his pain.
To the speaker in “The Vacuum,” the vacuum that sits stationary in his house is not only a reminder of his wife, but also a symbol of their life together before her death. The vacuum symbolizes his many memories and his present lifestyle. Because he cannot bear to use the vacuum, his “house is so quiet now” (Ln. 1) without the noise of his wife vacuuming. After the husband notes the quietness of his house without the sound of the vacuum, he utilizes personification when he states, “The vacuum cleaner sulks in the corner closet,” (Ln. 2). Personification also occurs throughout the remainder of the poem. For example, the husband describes the vacuum with, “its mouth/ Grinning into the floor,” (Ln. 3-4), and remembers how the vacuum used to “[eat] the dust” (Ln. 9) and “howl” (Ln. 10). In “The Vacuum,” personification is a powerful instrument, which Nemerov implements to give the vacuum a human quality, symbolizing the speaker’s wife.
The utilization of similes is another figure of speech that appears within Nemerov’s poem. The first simile that appears also is a traditional symbol. Nemerov writes, “The vacuum’s] bag limp as a stopped lung (Ln. 3), as it is a comparison between the non-operating vacuum bag and a non-breathing lung. It also exemplifies a traditional symbol. Lungs traditionally symbolize life or the breath of life. The vacuum, like the speaker’s wife, no longer breathes with life. This symbol adds to the vacuum’s personification as a living, breathing object to the husband. The husband also utilizes another simile and personification when he explains that he cannot bring himself to operate the vacuum, as he cannot bear, “To see the bag swell like a belly,” (Ln. 9). The husband’s life also is now “cheap as dirt,” (Ln. 13). “Cheap as dirt” symbolizes how the husband feels without his wife; his life’s worth is comparable to dirt in her absence.
phorically, the vacuum is the clean soul of the speaker’s wife. The vacuum is a person to him. The vacuum is his wife and his memory of her. His wife’s cleanliness and purity was the past, while in the present the speaker’s phor for his life is dirty and slovenly.
Nemerov writes, “maybe at my/ Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth” (Ln. 4-5) to explain how the husband no longer can exert energy to clean and vacuum his house. The husband sees no reason to operate the vacuum to clean his house, because he sees no use for him to expend effort when his wife is not near him. The husband also utilizes phors in the deion that there is “old filth everywhere” in his house, because his wife is no longer there to clean. It is as if his life is cheap and useless as dirt without his wife. His “heart hangs on and howls; biting at air” (Ln.14-15). The vacuum used to howl when his wife was alive, but now the husband is the one who howls in his painful loneliness. The speaker’s house was once clean and filled with love, but now it is dirty and filled with loneliness.
Nemerov’s utilization of figurative language throughout “The Vacuum” enables me as the reader to visualize the speaker sitting in his chair, looking at the vacuum, thinking of his wife. Through Nemerov’s figures of speech, I am able to visualize an older model vacuum, for example, a “Kirby” with a deflated cloth bag, empty of “dust” (Ln. 9) and “woolen mice” (Ln. 10). I also visualize the husband’s flashbacks of his wife crawling “in the corner and under the stair” (Ln. 12) while she vacuumed meticulously. Nemerov's language enables me to experience the speaker’s emotions, and to visualize his memories of his wife by viewing the vacuum through his eyes. Nemerov’s vivid use of figurative language throughout the entirety of his poem provides the reader with a greater amount of significance than if the speaker had stated, for example, “I miss my wife. My life is empty without her.” Through Nemerov’s deive language, I am able to grasp the enormity of the speaker’s pain, and his “hungry, angry heart” that “hangs on and howls, biting at the air” (Ln. 14-15) in memory of his wife.



Why does the husband in the vacuum say that his life is so cheap as dirt?
he husband’s life also is now “cheap as dirt,” (Ln. 13). “Cheap as dirt” symbolizes how the husband feels without his wife; his life’s worth is comparable to dirt in her absence. phorically, the vacuum is the clean soul of the speaker’s wife. The vacuum is a person to him. The vacuum is his wife and his memory of her. His wife’s cleanliness and purity was the past, while in the present the speaker’s phor for his life is dirty and slovenly. Nemerov writes, “maybe at my/ Slovenly life, my dog-dead youth” (Ln. 4-5) to explain how the husband no longer can exert energy to clean and vacuum his house. The husband sees no reason to operate the vacuum to clean his house, because he sees no use for him to expend effort when his wife is not near him. The husband also utilizes phors in the deion that there is “old filth everywhere” in his house, because his wife is no longer there to clean. It is as if his life is cheap and useless as dirt without his wife. His “heart hangs on and howls; biting at air” (Ln.14-15). The vacuum used to howl when his wife was alive, but now the husband is the one who howls in his painful loneliness. The speaker’s house was once clean and filled with love, but now it is dirty and filled with loneliness.
Explain fully the line: Its bag limp as a stopped lung.”
Nemerov writes, "Its bag limp as a stopped lung (3), to draw a comparison between the inactive vacuum bag and inactive lungs. Breathing lungs symbolize life. No longer does the vacuum, or the speaker's wife, breathe with life. This simile contributes to the vacuum's personification of his wife because the vacuum is a living, breathing entity to the husband.