Essay on A poem and a loaded gun

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”,

In 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 year before returning again. Though she did not marry, the traditional roles of women still restricted her to live in the home of her family and under the ruler ship of her father like the rest of the women in the house. Some of her close friends and

The tone seems reflective, as if the narrator is retelling the story over, having thought about it many times. There is one point when irony is used—the last stanza is full of confusing words that contradict each other and are certainly not what one would expect after reading the preceding line. I feel the rhetorical situation is the narrator telling a story, perhaps something that happened long ago, and reflecting on it. Dickinson’s use of dashes—though she uses them frequently in all poems—assists to the feeling of story-telling. There are a few occasions throughout the poem when the use of dashes gives the idea of the narrator pausing and adding in a little extra information, maybe something that helps the reader understand the situation more. I think the reader is having a one-on-one meeting with the narrator, though the reader is never formally or specifically addressed. I think it could be that the narrator has gone off on a bit of a tangent, and is perhaps talking almost to his or herself, and glances back to the reader every once in a while to make sure he or she is still paying attention.

Emily Dickinson was one of the many famous American poets whose work was published in the 19th century. Her writing style was seen as unconventional due to her use of “dashes and syntactical fragments”(81), which was later edited out by her original publishers. These fragmented statements and dashes were added to give emphasis to certain lines and subjects to get her point across. Even though Emily Dickinson was thought to be a recluse, she wrote descriptive, moving poems on death, religion, and love. Her poems continue to create gripping discussions among scholars on the meaning behind her poems.

Through this final stanza, Dickinson expressed that a woman and her words, are not only powerful in a man’s world, but they can also withhold the test of

Emily Dickinson, recognized as one of the greatest American poets of the nineteenth century, was born December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts (Benfey, 1). Dickinson’s greatness and accomplishments were not always recognized. In her time, women were not recognized as serious writers and her talents were often ignored. Only seven of her 1800 poems were ever published. Dickinson’s life was relatively simple, but behind the scenes she worked as a creative and talented poet. Her work was influenced by poets of the seventeenth century in England, and by her puritan upbringing. Dickinson was an obsessively private writer. Dickinson withdrew herself from the social contract around the age of thirty and devoted herself, in secret, to writing.

Dickinson's use of diction in this case displayed the speaker's calmness, even though she was looking at her own grave. Perhaps she was trying to tell the reader that death and the grave is not something to be feared.

Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense

In the second stanza Dickinson says. “For that last Onset - when the King be witnessed.” I believe she is trying to explain that something is coming for her, some otherworldly being who will steal her away from this world. She doesn’t explain who or what this being is but does

In the last stanza, Dickinson asserts an overwhelming anguish. What she is experiencing feels so much like chaos, but although similar, since it is not really chaos, she has no prospect

Though initially, Dickinson received little to no recognition for her published poetic works, modern critics have come to the realization that her poetic style was simply well ahead of her time (Gale 47). Dickinson’s use of dashes, capitalized letters, and punctuation, allow her to place emphasis on particular words and ideas. In “I’m “wife”-I’ve finished that”, Dickinson uses quotations surrounding the word “wife” in the first and final line to demonstrate the role of women during this time period (lines1,12). This becomes important and more apparent when the introduction of the word “Woman” arrives in line three. The contrast between the words “wife” and “Woman” are much like the roles each played in society. Similar to the method in which Dickinson uses to present the word wife, wives of this time period were less independent and more restricted than unmarried women. The quotations surrounding the words wife and Woman may be used as a symbol of the restrictive life woman in general were required to live. On the other hand, the capitalized word “Woman” demonstrates the freedom and independence a single woman is afforded in contrast to a married woman. Line three compares the “Woman” to a czar, demonstrating the power the speaker feels women are capable of possessing

With the end of the second stanza, referencing the contented eye stuck on a bust that knows it cannot see, Dickinson fully realizes her life as a woman. This is when the reader can see

The subject of this poem is the speaker and his/her life in the hands of The Owner. The point that the author is trying to make is that life is like a loaded gun, in that it has great potential, but cannot accomplish anything without the help of a master’s hand. The poem is very descriptive as to what is accomplished when the master takes control. I like this poem because I can relate it to the life of a Christian in the hands of God. The metaphors that Dickinson uses can be interpreted in different ways according to one’s beliefs, but I can definitely see religious connotations within this text. For example, The Owner can be seen as God, and in the fourth stanza the speaker states,

Emily Dickinson is one of the most interesting female poets of the nineteenth century. Every author has unique characteristics about him/her that make one poet different from another, but what cause Emily Dickinson to be so unique are not only the words she writes, but how she writes them. Her style of writing is in a category of its own. To understand how and why she writes the way she does, her background has to be brought into perspective. Every poet has inspiration, negative or positive, that contributes not only to the content of the writing itself, but the actual form of writing the author uses to express his/her personal talents. Emily Dickinson is no different. Her childhood and adult experiences and culture form

In stanza 1, Dickinson begins by expressing the captivity that she feels due to society controlling what she can and cannot do. In lines 1 and 2, Dickinson explains that she was limited to only writing in “Prose”. She capitalizes “Prose” and “Girl” to emphasize that women