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In the poem, 'Haunted Houses', what does the speaker see at his fireside that the stranger cannot?
Topic: The speaker and the stranger
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Answer
(c) the speaker sees both the present and the past.
Longfellow’s central idea is that every house is crowded with the "harmless phantoms" of those who lived there before. The speaker, who belongs to the house, perceives these presences of the past alongside the living present; a stranger sees only the furniture. The poem is about memory as a kind of second sight — hold on to that idea, since the longer questions on this poem all turn on it.
the speaker sees both the present and the past.
The speaker sees both the present and the past.