Diego Sinay

Mrs. Crosby
April 7, 2010

In Household Gods, a poem by Philip Hobsbaum, a house tells

the nostalgic story of life; her life and the people who lived inside her.
Characterization and allegories are used to describe the feelings when
a couple breaks by referring to the emotions that the house would
feel. From a house point of view, the people living in the household
resemble Gods, since they decide the fate of their life. Through out
the poem, Philip Hobsbaum uses an array of metaphors and
characterizations to bring the house to life, describing what has
happened in its interior as the effect on the house itself.
In the fifth stanza it is left implicitly clear that the speaker of the
poem is a house. What is a house when the occupants are fled? This
simple question grasps another meaning when it is understood that
the house has a life of its self. Phrases such as I saw them. I was
there, implies that the house has a conscience of its own. It is this
conscious house that relates with the Household Gods. Once that the
inhabitants of the house leave, the house becomes old, it becomes
numb. The house is a comparison of the relationship between a
couple, as their, her and him imply in the second stanza.
Hobsbaum gives the house lifelike features and expressions to
tell what has happen inside; comparing the solitude of the house with
that of the couple. I mirrored their breaking lives. This phrase from

the first stanza refers to the mirrors in the house, and how it mirrored
the fights the household owners had. Then it is the walls from the
house that talks. This is symbolic since it said that walls keep secrets
and truth from the world, and now it is the same walls that have so
long been silent. The solitude that a house is found once that it is
abounded relates to the nostalgic feeling of losing touch with
someone. Hobsbaum uses a game of words to do this transition,
starting from her slim fingers to me, the house, leading to him.
In this case the house is the connection between the two remembered
feelings, that of the fingers on the wall as the bodies of the couple
together.
The same pattern goes on with the house as different parts of
the household represent different memories. The bed misses
company in the morning and darkness, the two periods during a day
that people sleep in it. The sadness of the bed of being abandoned
relates with the nostalgia of waking up alone. The question, where is
the firm mouth now alludes as why is the bed empty, but also why
are the owners of the house alone. The same happens with the floor;
once it was the highway that leads the two people to love each other,
now it is a street that it is walked by strangers. Hobsbaum uses this
metaphor to represent how the two lovers lost their path and now
they are strangers for each other.
As the poem goes on, the separation between the couple and
the house becomes to blur. The emotions are not expressed
separately but the couple and the house are seen as a reflection of

each other. This all expresses in Bit by bit they painted my walls, the
calling, made me in terms of their vision. This phrase clearly
demonstrates that the house is a representation of the couple. This is
restated with I mirrored their coming here. The author uses this
fusion to arause the feeling of ending a relationship, by enabling the
reader to relate to a house being left vacant. At the end of the poem it
can be seen a complete junction of these two aspects. Their parting
was our dissolution implies that the parting of the household owners
was our dissolution. By our, it is not meant only the house, but the
house and the couple alike.
With the question that the speaker asks himself, What is a
house once that the occupants are fled? the author tries to express
what happens when a relationship is ended, what happens to the
people. The answer is found later in the poem, and has a strong way
of delivering itself. They will never know their household god are
slain. This is the tragedy of the poem since the house will be left in
solitude left to die in time, while the couple lost a part of them
without knowing, their Household Gods; their memories and feelings
are slain.