My Life Had Stood - A Loaded Gun - 879 Words

Emily Dickinson’s poem â€Å"My life had stood – a Loaded Gun† mainly reflects a woman confined in her traditional role of being a wife. As stated by Dickinson in her poem â€Å"1072†, a women’s life consisted of being â€Å"Born – Bridalled – Shrouded† (line 10). After birth, a female’s main purpose in life was to get married and take on the role of being a wife until death. Although, the speaker in this poem expresses anger at certain times on her constraints, she goes on to turn her situation into a positive one, by compromising and being content with what she has. The speaker in the poem shows capability of taking autonomous actions by adopting new roles and voicing out her opinions. This poem is a balance between the speaker accepting her role, and breaking boundaries whenever it’s needed. Firstly, the speaker describes her life as a â€Å"loaded gun† (line 1), which shows dependence, since a gun has potential to be deadly or powerful only when used by someone else. Also, the speaker chooses to use a gun that’s loaded with bullets as a comparison, opposed to an empty gun. The bullets represent the speaker’s rage, her personality and her opinions, which are suppressed, and can only come forward at the expense of the owner when he pulls the trigger. This might be hinting towards the fact that, like a loaded gun, a woman’s life has not reached its full purpose until an â€Å"owner† (line 3) claims it. The gun is merely an object that only becomes useful once possessed by someone. Moreover, theShow MoreRelatedAnalysis My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun Essay2511 Words   |  11 Pagespoem I will try to analyze is My Life Had Stood—A Loaded Gun, or number 754. I find this to be one of her most difficult poems to decode. However, I fi nd the images fascinating and the last stanza very confusing but intriguing. What I first thought the poem was about and what I finally came to a conclusion on are two completely different thoughts. Through answering questions on the poem’s literary elements, thorough analysis of the words, and rewriting the poem in my own words, I came to the conclusionRead MoreAnalysis of Dickinsons Poem, My Life had Stood a Loaded Gun631 Words   |  3 Pagesâ€Å"My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun† In the poem, â€Å"My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun,† published around 1863, Emily Dickinson effectively uses metaphorical language in making the speaker compare him/her self to a loaded gun. The speaker speaks as if he/she is a loaded gun waiting to expose their full potential. When reading this poem, one could definitely see religious connotations in that one cannot reach his/her full potential without The Master’s – God’s – help and direction. In â€Å"My Life had stoodRead MoreEmily Dickinsons My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun Essay970 Words   |  4 PagesDickinson’s â€Å"My Life Had Stood – a Loaded Gun†, is a metaphor of a gun and its master which is used to represent a wife and her husband. This metaphor is used to illustrate an unbalanced relationship where the wife is objectified and lacks agency. The wife reduced to an object which is at the disposal of her hunter/master/husband. The gun narrates the poem and it takes pleasure in expressing its power to kill. The poem presents the challenge of identifying who the speaker is and who the gun metaphoricallyRead MoreEmotion in Emily Dickinsons â€Å"My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun†1109 Words   |  5 PagesThis was the period where art was based on emotion; the â€Å"Romantic Period†. She was also born in the Victorian Era, where women had to be shackled to their pedestals and most had to be married by age eighteen. They were not allowed to vote, or earn money. This information should help the reader better understand the poem. When writing the poem â€Å"My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun† Dickinson thought of what format to use to express her emotions; Quatrain (four verses). This format is used to express deepRead MoreMy Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson Essay804 Words   |  4 PagesMy Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson Today, few would deny that Emily Dickinson is an important figure in American literature. The numerous ways to interpret her poetry draws more and more readers into her publications. Its as if everyone could interpret Dickinsons poems into his or her personal life; seeing the poems the way they want to see it. This is the effect flexible poems have on people. In Dickinsons My Life Had Stood#8212;A Loaded Gun, I interpreted theRead MoreAnalysis Of Emily Dickinson s Poem My Life Had Stood- A Loaded Gun 993 Words   |  4 Pagestheme in most of Dickinson s poems is the wonders of nature, and the identity of self, as well as death and life. The five poems with the common theme of death are: â€Å"My Life had Stood- A Loaded Gun†, â€Å"I Heard A Fly Buzz- When I Died†, â€Å"Behind Me Dips- Eternity†, â€Å"Because I Could Not Stop for Death†, and â€Å"I â€Å"I Felt a Funeral in my Brain.† In the first poem â€Å"My Life had Stood- A Loaded Gun†, Emily Dickinson really plays into human emotion by describing anger as a â€Å"Vesuvian face† which is essentiallyRead MoreFight For Agency By Emily Dickinson985 Words   |  4 Pagespoem, â€Å"My life has stood –a loaded gun†, the speaker described her inner turmoil and anger towards the agency she was seeking during her marriage. As for this poem Dickinson personified herself as a loaded gun, suggesting that she has been supressing the inner anger and chaos over time. In other words, her inner thoughts about her marital status have accumulated into rage, indicating that her mind is not any less dangerous than a weapon. Nevertheless, the speaker of â€Å"My life had stood –a loaded gun†Read More`` It Was Not Death, For I Stood Up, By Emily Dickinson1728 Words   |  7 Pagesillness to reclusiveness within her works titled â€Å"It was not Death, for I stood up,† â€Å"Afte r great pain, a Formal feeling comes,† â€Å"I dwell in Possibility,† â€Å"My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun,† and â€Å"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant†.† Emily Dickinson is one of the most influential female poets of the 19th century. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts in 1830, Dickinson began her life as a normal child. Growing up, Dickinson had more opportunities than most women of the 19th century; being able to attendRead MoreAnalysis of Dickinsons Loaded Gun Poem1172 Words   |  5 PagesIn the poem 764 of The Norton Anthology which starts My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun - (line 1), Emily Dickinson takes on the role of a married woman of the nineteenth century whose husband owns and completely controls her. The woman, whose voice Dickinson wrote from, reflects on the importance of her husband s life to hers and her dependency on him being there to direct her life. Dickinson never married and lived a secluded life in her family s home, only ever leaving the house for one yearRead MoreFemale Oppression By Emily Dickinson And Charlotte Perkins Gilman1729 Words   |  7 Pagesof American Literature there has been a common theme of mal e oppression. Especially towards the end of the 19th century, before the first wave of feminism, women were faced with an unshakeable social prison. Husband, home and children were the only life they knew, many encouraged not to work. That being said, many female writers at the time, including Emily Dickinson and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, were determined to examine the mind behind the American woman, through the lens of mental illness and