My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun

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Recommended: Imagery and personification poems

Emily Dickerson’s poem, “My Life Stood – A Loaded Gun” is about a gun which is a personification of it's owner. The pleasure the gun takes in violence represents its owner's pleasure in violence.
From the start we know this is the story of an object, we're told that the owner, “carried Me away.” The gun says that when, “I speak for him [. . .] The Mountains straight reply.” The mountains' “straight” reply means its immediate reply or echo, referring to how a gunshot would echo off the mountains right away. The line could be read as, “When I speak, the Mountains straight away reply with an echo.” Together the gun and its master, “roam in Sovreign Woods” and “hunt the Doe”. When the gun says that at night it, “guard[s] My Master’s Head”, the word head is a synechdoche for the master's entire body and life. The gun protects more than just its owner's head, it also guards his life. The master's enemies are the gun's enemies, “To foe of His - I’m deadly foe.” The reader can know that this poem is narrated by a gun though all these clues; it has an owner, when it makes noise it echos off mountains, it hunts doe, it protects its master, and it's a deadly enemy to its owner's enemies.
The gun is the personification of the owner. In reality, the gun does not roam the woods, hunt doe, or protect its master. Without a human using it, a gun simply sits lifelessly on a shelf. It's the man who roams the woods, hunts doe, and protects himself with the gun. The poem makes it sound as if man and gun are a team. By first person person plural pronouns such as, “We roam,” “We Hunt,” “Our good Day,” in the poem makes it clear that the gun and owner share their life, spending time and doing everything together. It says that the “Owner passed” the ...

... middle of paper ...

...n”). The "face" is the face of the gun or end of the barrel, which explodes with a deadly bullet instead of lava. The poem substitutes pleasure for bullet when it says that the gun barrel, "let it's pleasure through." The bullet is the gun's pleasure that and he smiles warmly when firing it. The gun, and therefore it's master takes pleasure in the violence and deadly force of the loaded gun.

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily. “My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun” Poetry Foundation. 2014. Poetry
Foundation. 25 Feb. 2014
“Cordial.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
“Identical.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
“Identified.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.
“Versuvian.” Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. 2014. Web. 25 Feb. 2014.

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