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Personification In The Vacuum By Howard Nemerov

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The poem “The Vacuum” by Howard Nemerov tells the life of an old man after the horrific loss of his wife. His wife did everything he could ever imagine for him. She was his heart and soul and didn’t know what to do without her. The man saw her as his hero. Throughout the poem the man struggles to keep his emotions in as he thinks his wife soul has traveled to inside the vacuum. He never wants to hear the vacuum come to life because every time he hears the vacuum turn on, his memories with his wife start to rush in his head. In the “The Vacuum” Howard Nemerov uses symbols, similes and personification in order to reveal losing a spouse can be devastating. The author uses a symbol to reveal the theme and focuses on his hero which is also his wife. The reason why the wife is the man’s hero is because she took good care of him. The poem explains …show more content…

Howard gives the vacuum qualities by saying the bag smiled “it’s mouth/Grinning into the floor” (line 3-4). Vacuums do not have a mouth which makes it physically impossible to grin, therefore he used personification. Howard Nemerov used most personification on the vacuum because his wife’s soul went into the vacuum. The man also says “eating the dust/ and the woolen mice” (line 9-10), meaning the vacuum is full with dust and trash from the floor that his wife had cleaned. All through the poem Howard Nemerov did an excellent job using different literary devices to show the man’s struggles after the loss of his beloved wife. Throughout the poem he uses literary devices such as a symbol, similes and personification in order to reveal his pain after a tragic loss. The husband became depressed as the days went by without his wife. His wife became symbolized as a vacuum because she made sure the house was clean each and every day so he could be happy. The similes and personification showed that the vacuum was the main symbol in the

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