In the poem, Household Gods, Philip Hobsbaum comments on the universal nature of emotions, not just fostering in animate objects but also in inanimate objects. Hobsbaum perhaps calls the household objects as household gods to highlight the non-interfering nature of God. Just like God, the objects too couldn’t express their thoughts and emotions to the couple directly, which gives the reader some sort of understanding of the nature and power of these objects. Through the use of visual imagery, Hobsbaum highlights the different emotions the household objects experience due to the break of a couple inhabiting in the house. Hobsbaum captivates the readers’ attention through anthropomorphisms. Hobsbaum binds the poem together by highlighting the emotions and perspectives of nine household objects with one common theme – their despair due to the breakup and their desperation to be used again. The poem begins with a statement about the ‘breaking lives’ of the couple. The use of personal pronouns creates a petulant tone, almost as if a child is confessing to something, “I saw them. I was there.” This childish confession perhaps hints that the object is a new introduction to the house and hasn’t spent much time with the couple. This is also evident in the structure of the first stanza wherein, most of it is the description of the couple – the boy with “his shaken bulk” and the girl with “her clam pose” and suddenly amidst the vivid description the emotion of the object is depicted as “lined despair” due to its agitation of watching the “distraught” couple “coming and going.” Hobsbaum really describes the object to have attributes of a child who gets affected with its constantly changing environment. The significant amount of vivid description indicates that the object is merely observing the couple and trying to “mirror(ed) their breaking lives” like a young child