The Vacuum Poem Research - A Literary Essay Sample

The Vacuum is a captivating poem that was written by Howard Nemerov. The literature is an essential piece that includes several styles to convey a particular theme. The persona describes the experience he is going through after the demise of his lovely wife. The sentence structure and the type of the figurative language are attractive, which requires one to evaluate and analyze the poem effectively to understand the meaning. In poetry, the style plays a critical role in disseminating the intended message. This excerpt outlines the role of style in conveying the personas emotions in The Vacuum poem written by Howard Nemerov.

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The process of describing the particular emotions in a piece of literature is not an easy task, and the authors are required to choose the descriptive words carefully. Whenever the choices of styles are incorporated in the writings, then the piece will attract the attention of the readers (West 185). In The Vacuum, Howard brings out the personas emotions after he lost his wife, which ushered him in a life of loneliness and sorrow. The writer used the Vacuum pun to distinguish between the profession of the wife and despair of the persona. The author uses rhymes, which is a proof of the unsatisfying sound, to enable the persona to express the internal dissatisfaction regarding the demise of the beloved wife. Rhymes like mouth and youth, stair and air, as well as dirt and heart, have been used to highlight the personas feeling of being incomplete (Nemerov 51). It is essential to note how the aspect of rhyme is limited in the poem since the desire of the writer was for the reader to focus and share in the emotions of the persona.

Moreover, the figurative language has been included to outline the personas mind concerning his life without the wife. The persona did not state that he lost the spouse, but talks about his experience with the vacuum, which is a metaphor. The comparison of his status to a space ushers the reader to not only visualize but also virtually experience the emotions and agony related to losing ones wife. The persona states that the house is quite now and the only thing he keeps gazing at is the vacuum cleaner that sulks in the corner closet (Nemerov 51). Line 11 uses another metaphor to outline how the sorrow of the husband increases when he looks at the current condition of their house. In line 11, the loneliness of the house has been exaggerated because there is old filth everywhere, which the persona ascertain that the wife used to crawl in the corner and under the stair to clean.

Furthermore, the poem includes similes to show the agony of the lonely husband. The persona explains the condition of the cleaner using the phrase its bag limp as a stopped lung to show the reader how the silence of the machine seemed to echo the nonexistence of the wife who passed away. The phrase I cant bear/ To see the bag swell like a belly in line 9 signifies how the death of the persons wife was painful and recounting the moments torments the husband with sorrow (Nemerov 51). The use of assonance describes the grief of the man by focusing on the h and o sound. For example, the writer combines words in lines like the hungry, angry heart hangs and when my old woman died her soul ... house is so quiet now. The lines depict the mourning of the persona, which is immediately followed by simple alliterations such as biting the air to show the degree of despair in him.

Besides, the use of long and complex sentences has characterized the poem. The writer used cumulative clauses to demonstrate the magnitude of mediation that engaged the mind of the persona. The middle of The Vacuum poem is a complex sentence that describes the experience of the husband immediately after the death of the wife, and the proceeding torment he is going through after that. Such a style in this poem shows the level of tension and hurt combined with the sadness caused by being alone. The composition ends with the persona concluding that life is cheap as dirt, which shows the effect of extended subjection to sorrow and loneliness that makes the husband devalue life without his wife.

In conclusion, the poem by Howard is an essential literature piece that describes the experience of a widower, which spins around the life he shared with his wife and the current loneliness he is witnessing. The variety of styles used in the piece has enabled the author to highlight the feelings of the persona in few stanzas. The use of the vacuum pun had assisted in outlining the difference between the husbands experiences when the wife was alive and after she died. The description of the sorrow, as well as the loneliness of the persona, was achieved because of the author included a variety of language styles such as simile, alliteration, metaphor, and personification.

Work Cited

Nemerov, Howard. The Worlds Poetry Archive: Classic Poetry Series. United States: Poem Hunter. 2012. Print.

West, Danielson. Translating the Poetry of the Holocaust: Translation, Style, and the Reader. Language and Literature 25.2, (2016): 1985 188. Web.