The house in "The Deserted House" is a metaphor for a dead body or dead person.
The poem opens with "life and thought have gone away" speaking of a person who has died and no longer has life or thoughts. It continues in Lines 1-3 describing the emptiness of the house, showing the stillness and emptiness of death.
In Line 4 "The house was builded of the earth, And shall fall again to ground." refers to a body being buried, similar to the common funeral phrase "from dust to dust"
Line 5 refers to the person in Heaven- "in a city glorious-- A great and distant city--have bought A mansion incorruptible." Incorruptible in this line means everlasting or unable to decay, showing that the person, (the "mansion") will stay there forever.
The poem ends with "Would they could have stayed with us!" in reference to the person who has died-wishing they had not "moved" to heaven and instead could have stayed alive.
Answer:
Lehna connects with her audience through thoughts common to most people. This generates identification, which allows a credibility with the character to be established.
Explanation:
As you can see in the question above, Lehna expresses feelings that make him feel inadequate and rejected by society. He feels that society judges him and does not accept him for things of the past. He feels lonely and disengaged from this world. These are feelings common to every human being. We all feel that way as if the weight of all the judgment in the world is on our shoulders, just as Lehna feels.
This makes the audience create an identification with the person and as everyone knows these feelings, the character gains credibility and his drama makes sense to the audience that accompanies him.
"And looky here—you drop that school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be better'n what HE is."
