My Life had Stood A Loaded Gun

Posted on by Cade Boiney
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Emily Dickinson’s “My Life had Stood a Loaded Gun” presents themes of devotion and powerlessness through the speaker’s reflection on their life, imagery, and ambiguous diction which enables flexible interpretation. The poem is composed of six quatrains, and only the first and last have rhyme schemes (ABCB) which make the poem feel complete (essentially coming full circle) along with their contents. The first stanza establishes a power dynamic between the speaker and their ‘Owner’: “My life had stood – a Loaded Gun…till a Day / The Owner passed…And carried Me away” (1-4). The last synopsizes the speaker’s perceived purpose in relation to their owner: “Though I than He – may longer live / He longer must – than I” (21-22).

 

The metaphor comparing the speaker’s life to a loaded gun sitting in the corner waiting to be used establishes the tragic implications of this poem, in that the speaker feels their life only has significance as a consequence of someone/something other than themselves taking control of it. With this message in mind, I was curious about the intended audience/takeaways of the poem. Is the speaker suggesting that this sort of dynamic is unique to them, or are all of us under control of something/someone? I interpreted it as the speaker’s cry to help, but if interpreted through the lens of the vices we all have in some aspect of our lives, the poem becomes universal, and I found this contrast very interesting.

2 thoughts on “My Life had Stood A Loaded Gun”

  1. Good post! I thought your interpretation of the poem was thought-provoking. The whole poem is also riddled with caesura lines, like each line having bullets inside them. I feel that the speaker’s dynamic is a toxic one with the owner, as the speaker essentially is an extension of his, with no indication that he about them. The speaker must kill, emotionally cater, and act on the owner’s emotions until they die, and what makes it sad is that the former says that while they might seem to live longer, it’s not the case since he can die, and the speaker can only act on their own rage, and emotions can never die.

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  2. I also enjoyed your interpretation of this poem. Since there is clearly a tragic topic to this poem relating to the speaker feeling without a purpose of their own, since they only have that purpose when they are with their master. The only instance of them feeling positive or alive is when they are taken by their master on the hunt. The line I found most reflective of this sad emotion was in stanza four where instead of sleeping alongside their master they simply protect him at night. So as to who the audience could be, I think it could be to married women who might relate to this idea of being in a partnership but not having equality. So I would adopt that second idea that it is not isolated to their experience but is meant to be more universal for others in that situation.
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