An Analysis Of Howard Nemerov 's ' The Vacuum '

The Russian attitude toward love during Chekhov’s time is very patriarchal and is considered normal to marry for practical reasons, parental pressures or other considerations rather than for love. The feelings that accompany love, such as passion and spirituality, are not a societal consideration and this institutional attitude toward human emotion is the catalyst for Chekhov’s story. When a person is deprived of love, he or she builds up a futility of life which consumes the human soul. In Anton Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog”, the readers are placed in a setting where the main character Gurov, and his love interest Anna, are given the emotional freedom to feel love toward one another. This freedom is the driving force in the story

In the Bible book of Genesis chapters one through eleven is the story of the creation of the natural world, human identity, human relationships, and civilization. This is a story created by God, written by Moses and lived out by everyone, believers and nonbelievers. The first eleven chapters of Genesis do not set out to prove the existence of God, as some are trying to do today. These chapters simply put Him at the center of everything. The beginning of Genesis contains the account of creation, the fall of mankind into sin, procreation leading to civilization, the flood to bring about the re-creation, and finally the culminating account of man marveling in his own effort - the Tower of Babel. All of which creates the foundation of theology and the Christian’s worldview of how God intended things to function in our world. Genesis also forms a foundation for other religious and secular morals which aid in forming a worldview. By placing God at the center of everything, He creates the moral foundational worldview for cultures around the globe. In his book, The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire describes worldview as essentially this: “A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, … about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides

In the poem “XIV,” Derek Walcott utilizes the use of inhumane imagery that is being counterpointed with the use of happy imagery to show the view of an elderly woman with his experiences with her; the speaker recalls this information by describing his experiences with her with a sense of happiness, fear and appreciation.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov talks about a widower and his late wife, and how he uses the vacuum as a symbol for her death. The poem expresses deep sorrow and sadness that derive from the loneliness of the speaker, after his other half’s passing away. Nemerov attempts to take his readers on a grief-stricken journey, by strategically employing figurative language (mainly personification, metaphor, simile, and alliteration), fractured rhyme schemes and turns in stanza breaks in the poem.

The poem Sorrow by Martin Dejnicki shares many similar themes with The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien. Both works of writing display war as a painful and and traumatizing experience. However, this poem reflects the message in The Things They Carried chapter, “Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong” most accurately. Both the chapter and the poem share the theme that war can take away a person’s humanity. In the lines, “We've dug a hole, called a trench, Humanity is gone, replaced with stench” (Dejnicki) the author is trying to convey that a soldier in war can have their humanity striped away and uses the symbolism of “stench” to describe the foul persona that may replace it.

Have you ever felt dust or sand in your teeth, people had to deal with this every day. In the book out of the dust by Warren Hesse, she talks about how people struggled during the dust storm. Billie Jo faced a lot over the years, some big some big. One struggle that she faced was when my died and she was left alone with her dad that was not taking it well.

After being crushed with deep sorrow over the death of his beloved Ligeia, the narrator moves into a decaying abbey to leave behind his lonesome house. Although he leaves the exterior of the house untouched, the narrator decorates the interior with strange but lavish furniture. “The furnishings take on the shapes and colors of his fantastic dreams” as he attempts to cope with his loss (Kincheloe). This supports the idea that the narrator would rather live in his own colorful fantasy (like the inside of his house), than engage in the dark reality (as represented by the outside of the house). Losing Ligeia meant the narrator lost his fulfillment in life; which is why his reality is now gloomy and undesirable. Not only does is the furniture an example of dream imagery, the walls of the desolate house also have a dream effect. The moving images on the walls cause the house itself to seem restless and alive. The narrator imagines this because it represents himself; always on the edge of monstrosity with each changing mood. As he hallucinates on opium, his sense of reality and fantasy is put together as one. With each furnishing, a looming memory of Ligeia haunts him as he reminances her during his opium dreams.

In the third stanza there is heavy personification of the objects in her room and the moon. The room ‘it seemed, had missed her’ (10), by bringing inanimate objects to life the author draws parallels to the child missing her parent silently, silent like the items in her room. The moon has also begun to become characterized and has been framed as inconsiderate, ‘she pretended an interest in the bookcase’. This metaphor conveys how the child feels: overlooked, as if items in her room are more fascinating.

Isolation from society can evoke a deep loneliness and self-reflection. The poem "The Wife's Lament" from the Exeter Book expresses the desolation of exile. The dominant theme is the contrast of a happy past and a bleak present of isolation. The anonymous author of "The Wife's Lament" uses setting, tone, and conflict to develop the theme of great loss. He/she augments a situation in which meditation on life's past joys is the only redemption in a life sentenced to confinement. “The Wife’s Lament” is an excellent example of nostalgia, resentment of the present, and hopelessness about the future.

Hayden utilizes diction to set a dark and solemn tone throughout the poem. Like the various examples of imagery, there is also a strong use of underlying symbolism. In the first stanza, the words “cold” (1. 2) and “fires blaze” (1. 5) are used, which introduces a conflict. This is emphasized in the second stanza when the word “cold” (2. 1) is used again, later followed by the word “warm” (2. 2). In the last stanza, the father eventually “had driven out the cold” (3. 2). Yet the father had not ridden the house of the cold air until the end of the poem, which symbolizes how it took his son several years later to recognize the behaviors in which his father conveyed his love for him.

Nemerov's Poem "The Vacuum" begins with a tone that is mournful, and then develops into a tone that is hopeless. Strong topic sentenceThe poem is entitled 'The Vacuum', which can be interpreted as being both the literal vacuum cleaner in the corner and the metaphorical 'vacuum' or absence of matter that his wife's death has left in his life. The writer personifies the vacuum like a mirror of himself and his feelings using phrases like "limp as a stopped lung", and "sulks in the corner closet". Half way through the poem, the writer begins to use diction to describe his life that seems hopeless. He uses phrases such as "life is cheap as dirt".

This state of denial can be prominently depicted within Szymborska’s poem, “Identification.” The poem presents a chronological experience of a woman's developing emotions as she rejects the fact that her husband had past away. The false sense of security resides within this poem, as the repetition of “it’s good you came,” presumably attempts to formulate a positive motif throughout the morbid poem(1, 17, 23). The comfort of others conceals the genuine emotion of loneliness, as the death of a loved one creates a false sense of reality; therefore, the constant reminder that someone else was with the recipient of the bad news, reminds them that they are not completely alone in the world. Furthermore, the sense of denial is continued through the hope of objects just being ordinary, such as, “ a scrap of shirt, a watch, [and] a wedding ring.” Szymborska uses this asyndeton in order to create a sense of irony, as the objects become more specific as the “names on that ring” (10); nevertheless, this creates a false sense of comfort for the aspect that anyone could own these objects, in which portrays the yearning for a confirmation that the speaker’s loved one was not affiliated with this tragedy. Szymborska’s use of the euphemism, “rubber sleeping bag,” facilitates the endeavor to maintain the attempted positive motif, despite the “rubber sleeping bag” referring to a body bag (24). The body bag provides a false sense of a lighthearted connotation of a “sleeping bag” to being the cruel reality of death. Throughout “Identification,” Szymborska mocks the oblivion and denial of the woman despite the morbid context of the poem. Through this method Szymborska further implies that one should face reality. Precisely as society should not be dictated without truly analyzing the true intention of

The atmosphere of this exposition is clearly foreboding: "the dark clouds, broken chimneys, unused street, solitary cat, and dead air" all prove ominous and reflect the sordid ruling mood. Failed culture and solitary of aimless women ("a cat moved itself in and out of railing") not knowing exactly what to do about their predicaments in which

She stimulates thought of our narrow and rooted perspective and our indifferent towards our surroundings. These ideas that Szymborska is trying to raise is especially relevant to the modern world we live in today where humans are too self-involved and avaricious to contemplate over unnecessities like our rudimentary perception of the world. Szymborska leaves subliminal messages for the reader to consider and elucidates presumptuous thinking for them to question. After reading the poem, we are awakened from the monotones and controlled cycle we live in and left with a million brooding questions. She invites us to broaden our perspective by revaluating our judgement of the importance of everything around us. This corresponds directly with the success in the poems agenda to present us with a firmer and deeper appreciation of the things we deem so