An abandoned farmhouse located on a desolate country road is where a big, tall, godly man and his family once lived. The size of the man’s shoes and the extra length on the bed give clues about the size of this man. His family consisted of a woman and a child, because the rooms in the house were decorated with a woman’s touch, and the yard had a sandbox made from an old tractor tire. The fields full of large stones make them unsuitable for farming. The man failed to provide for his family. Money seemed scarce for the family, homemade food items were left on the shelves in the cellar. A crisis happened here, because the family left in a hurry. Evidence of their personal items are left abandoned at the farm. The man’s shoes left on broken …show more content…
Kooser writes tales of the man’s failure as a farmer and the despair feeling of the wife, and child. He eludes to this despair feeling by stating how the women and child left in a hurry leaving behind their belongings. They left even the food behind in their haste. Kooser illustrated to the readers the negative side of farming and how it affects the family by portraying the farmer’s failure and despair.
The narrator uses personification to tell the story. He uses non-human things to convey the story of the man and his family. A couple examples the narrator used are; “He was a big man, says the size of his shoes”, “God-fearing man, says the Bible with a broken back”, and “A women lived with him, says the bedroom wall papered with lilacs.” Personification is an effective way for the narrator to introduce the people to the readers without the family being physically present in the poem. Therefore letting the readers infer traits about the family.
Kooser also writes with similes to illustrate the scenes in the reader's mind. One way he used of simile was, “toys are strewn in the yard like branches after a storm.” This simile sets the scene of the scattered toys throughout the yard to a storm. The family endured a storm, some type of crisis led up to their hasty abandonment of their home. The narrator does not reveal what this crisis may be, he leaves that for the readers to