Building Envisionment With "The Vacuum"
By D. Reaman
A class of B-track 10th graders has just finished reading "The
Vacuum," a poem by Howard Nemerov. The piece explores a man's
feelings on the death of his wife, who is represented by a vacuum
cleaner. The teacher attempts to examine the poem using a reader
response approach to help students build their envisionment of the
poem's meaning to themselves and their peers.
Teacher: Who is the speaker here? What can you tell about how
they feel?
Ann: It's a man whose wife has died. He's unhappy, maybe
depressed.
Bart: Yeah, and he seems alone. The place is empty, very silent.
Teacher: How can you tell?
Bart: Well, it starts out saying the house is quiet now. So it
wasn't quiet before.
Colleen: And the vacuum clean "sulks' in the closet, so it's not
being used. Vacuums are noisy so this shows that there is no noise in
the house.
Teacher: Very good. Can we find any other clues?
David: Well the vacuum bag is limp, meaning it's not being used.
Oh, and later it says that his angry heart is biting at air. You
really can't make any sounds by biting the air.
Bart: Unless your teeth clack!
Teacher: Good point. Now what about the title? We agree the title
refers to the now-quiet machine. But does anyone think it can refer
to more?
Colleen: The second stanza talks about his life now that his wife
is dead. So I guess you could say it's about the void, or the vacuum,
that has been created since she's gone.
Teacher: Excellent! Anyone else who agrees with that?
Ed: I can see that.
Teacher: How so?
Ed: Now that she's not there, there's filth everywhere. She used
to take care of that kind of stuff. Now his house is a dirty mess.
Colleen: Right, and now he's left with a life that is as cheap as
dirt.
Teacher: Great, that says a lot about how he feels about his life,
doesn't it? Can anyone go further?
Ann: He's left with a hungry, angry heart.
Teacher: Which does what?
Ann: Hangs on, howls, bites at the air.
David: That show how lonely he is.
Teacher: Many of us see how the vacuum stands for the wife. It
represents her. It's kind of like a memorial. But how about the
husband? Can you see how he'd be like the vacuum?
David: I guess so because he can't act like he used to when the
woman was around. He kind of stands still like the vacuum in the
corner.
Colleen: Yeah, everything seems to stop without her.
Ann: Maybe that why his angry heart is now the thing that bites at
the air. Because, like, well the vacuum cleaner used to eat the dust,
bite at the rugs and stuff.
Teacher: Nice. Anyone agree with Ann? Who disagrees?
Bart: I don't know. I just see it as a man who is sad and the
vacuum cleaner just reminds him of his wife.
Ed: Yes, like how it says the bag swelled like a belly and ate the
dust.
Teacher: Good. I like that word, "dust." Kind of reminds you of
ashes to ashes, dust to dust, no? Who can see more?
Colleen: The wife, with her vacuum, cleaned up part of his life,
though. It helped him make sense of everything and now nothing seems
to work without her. Like, she was probably a cleaning freak who
always used the vacuum. Now the vacuum doesn't run without her. And
he's without her, too.
Ann: Yeah, he is as helpless as the unplugged vacuum.
Teacher: Nice. So how did "The Vacuum" make you feel? Take on the
role of the speaker and write down a one paragraph response to the
vacuum. Maybe you can focus on whether you'd use it again or whether
you'd put it away for good. Or would you replace it, perhaps?
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