"A Man I Knew"

"A Man I Knew" by Margaret Levine combines a wanting tone with figurative language to convey the loneliness of being rich. Someone who owns a condo is viewed as being a wealthy individual. Coupled with a maid who comes to clean the entire condo every other week, the man that the speaker knows is extremely affluent. The condo and the maid are metaphors for being rich. However, "the kids that won't" are not visiting their father as opposed to the maid. This is a metaphor for extreme loneliness because someone who has been abandoned by their family is one of the loneliest people. Being "on the dresser" is a metaphor for being close to the heart but far away in actuality. A picture that someone puts on the dresser is one that they want to see everyday just as the man wants to see his children everyday. On top of that, the simile floating "like a boat" is strengthening the love that the father has for his children because just as a boat floats alone, the pictures are alone on the dresser, the only things he wants to see. Using figurative language full of love and loneliness, Margaret Levine conveys the loneliness of an affluent man in "A Man I Knew".