Poetry Analysis "Home Is so Sad"

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Poetry Analysis “Home is so sad” By: Philip Larkin (1922-1985) This poem describes a home that is no longer inhabited by anyone. The poem can be taken two ways, literally or figuratively. The literal meaning being that the home literally is empty of people and falling into disrepair. Figuratively, when the poem says “home is so sad,” and “having no heart to put aside the theft” it is showing how the house is personified. Since in reality- a home cannot have true feelings, you can come to the conclusion that the poet made the home feel animated by giving it human-like characteristics. The speaker personifies the empty home to highlight the emotion of loneliness that the home is feeling, and also shows its contents as objects that miss and long for their owners. When the poem mentions “it stays as it was left,” and “shaped to the comfort of the last to go as if to win them back.” it is referring to how if the last people who left the house were to return they would find it just the same as they left it. A home is occupied with objects, memories, and so much more. A home grows, develops, and changes along with the people who change with it. The speaker tells of how the home wants to win back its people because it is “bereft of anyone to please, it withers so.” One would not usually imagine a home trying to prevail over anything or anyone, but this characterization creates such a feeling of desire that it makes you visualize the actual homes longing for attention. Inside the home there is love and memories that the residents left behind, and from these memories, the home is holding onto the comfort of the last to go. By characterizing the home, you are able to know the feelings the home are experiencing and that they are quite similar to the sad emotions people have when

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