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

cleaning part of vacuum cleaner died when the speaker’s wife did. The vacuum simply turns into a personified symbol to represent the present sorrow of the death and past memories of the speaker’s wife.
Personification of the vacuum and similes are used early on to put emphasis on how lonely the narrator feels. The vacuum comes to life in death as the speaker associates it with his dead wife. The vacuum starts off as being a symbol of death. In the opening of the poem the vacuum cleaner is presumably ‘dead’ as the speaker says that “The house is so quiet now” (1). Just as the vacuum is ‘dead’, so is the speaker’s wife. The vacuum is then further associated with death as the vacuum’s now useless bag is said to be as “limp as a stopped lung” (3). Now that the wife no longer is living her lungs are not filled with air, likewise the vacuum’s bag is not filled with air now that it is not being used by the narrator’s wife to fill it with dirt.
The vacuum is further personified as the poem progresses. The speaker begins to say in lines 4-5 how the vacuum is “grinning into the floor” because it is no longer in use and that in turn the speaker’s life has become that of a “dog-dead youth”. His wife’s death continues to eat at him paralyzing his ability to move forward.
In the following stanza the speaker admits he has a problem.

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

(10).
Domestication of the home is a major underlying theme in this poem. The speaker relies on his wife to do the cleaning of the home and even after her death he most closely seeks comfort in the vacuum. As the poem progresses, the vacuum comes to represent the speaker’s wife and what she stood for. “The Vacuum” was written in 1955 when women were still viewed as house wives. The speaker, like most men of that time, saw his wife as a crucial part of keeping and maintaining the home. The fact that the speaker now refuses to clean and is so sentimental over a simple vacuum is a lot more understandable because he was so used to the wife doing the vacuuming.
The final stanza of the poem hits on how dirty the house is now that the speaker is without his wife. Now that the vacuum just sits in the closet the speaker explains how dirty it has gotten saying “there is old filth everywhere” (11). The speaker takes blame for this because when his wife was still alive that was never an issue. The speaker’s wife, much like Cinderella, used to “crawl” to make sure every inch of the house was spotless. This further confirms the dead wife’s former role and why the vacuum is the perfect symbol to represent her.
The ending of the poem is the low point in the speaker’s troubles. The tone shifts from grievance to pain. The speaker ends his poem in lines 13 and 15 stating “how life is cheap as dirt” and how his angry heart is “biting at air”. The speaker is angry that he is alone now and his heart is yearning for love but all it feels is emptiness. Just as the vacuum is now lonely without dirt to fill its insides, the speaker’s loneliness causes just as big of a gap.
According to Oxford English Dictionary a vacuum can either be “A gap left by the loss, death, or departure of someone or something formerly playing a significant part in a situation or activity” or simply a “cleaner”. The double meaning within the word ‘vacuum’ perfectly summarizes the substance of the poem. The speaker conveys the emptiness he feels after the loss of a loved one and relates it to how she was the household cleaner and the gap that is now present because she can no longer perform her former significant household role. Through the use of figurative language the vacuum becomes the symbol of the speaker’s dead wife. Just as presidents are often remembered for their decisions in office and musicians for their music that touch many lives, this poem shows how the speaker is reminded of his late wife through the vacuum.