Emily Dickinson's My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun Essay

Emily Dickinson was one of the best American poets, but she is very famous for being a secluded writer. Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1846 in Amherst, Massachusetts and she died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her isolation from the outside world still confuses literary critics and readers of her poetry and letters. There are many theories developed over time about her seclusion. Some people believe her secluded way of life was her own choice but she was very close to her family. Emily Dickinson lived in a happy home and went to a school during her life. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830 and lived there all her life most of her life. An introduction into Emily Dickinson’s poetry themes, and discussion about the isolation in her life, and discussion about the isolation in her poetry will be examined in the paper.

Harwood uses “Daybreak:” as the opening into the poem, representing a new beginning, a new experience, which foreshadows the events to come. Negative descriptions such as, “horny fiend” are used by Harwood when the persona is describing herself taking her father’s gun at dawn, which is juxtaposed by the idea of the father at rest dreaming of an “obedient, angel-mind” child.

· In the first line of the poem, the speaker expresses her feelings towards men by using the word “Anger”(1). From just the

Emily Dickinson was one of the best American poets, but she is very famous for being a secluded writer. Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1846 in Amherst, Massachusetts and she died on May 15, 1886 at the age of 55 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her isolation from the outside world still confuses literary critics and readers of her poetry and letters. There are many theories developed over time about her seclusion. Some people believe her secluded way of life was her own choice but she was very close to her family. Emily Dickinson lived in a happy home and went to a school during her life. Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1830 and lived there all her life most of her life. An introduction into Emily Dickinson’s poetry themes, and discussion about the isolation in her life, and discussion about the isolation in her poetry will be examined in the paper.

The last two lines of the poem are a timid reflection on what might happen “Had I the Art to stun myself/ With Bolts—of Melody!” (23-24). The idea that creation is a power that can get loose and injure even the creator illuminates why in this poem the artist positions herself firmly as a mere spectator. In these first two poems, we meet a Dickinson who is not entirely familiar to us—even though we are accustomed to her strong desire for privacy, these poems can be startling in the way they reveal the intensity of Dickinson’s fears. She is, after all, shrinking from what is dearest to her—nature, one of her favorite subjects, becomes a harsh judge, and poetry, her favored medium of communication, can suddenly render the reader “impotent” and the writer “stun[ned]” (19, 23). The extremity of her positions in shrinking from the small and beautiful things she loves creates the sense that this is just the beginning of a journey by leaving so much room for change.

Emily Dickinson is a poet known for her cryptic, confusing language. Words are often put together in an unusual way and create deciphering difficulties for the reader. But behind all the confusion is a hidden meaning that becomes clear, and one realizes that all the odd word choices were chosen for a specific reason. The poem 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 find 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

I find it very interesting that even though that Dickinson was a private woman and somewhat an odd individual. The reason I call her odd is because I remember reading about her in the textbook that said she would tell people she wanted to see them, but after they arrived to see her she would run and hide. So I am assuming she had an antisocial personality. I suppose she learned to be a creative author by reading all those books that her father gave her, and thus led her to have such an open mind which in turn made her a successful

Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” is a remarkable masterpiece that exercises thought between the known and the unknown. Critics call Emily Dickinson’s poem a masterpiece with strange “haunting power.”

The subject of death, including her own was a very prevalent theme in Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters. Some may find her preoccupation with death morbid, but this was not unusual for her time period. The mindset during Ms. Dickinson’s time was that of being prepared to die, in the 19th century people died of illness and accidents at an alarming rate, not to mention the Civil War had a high number of casualties, she also lived 15 years of her youth next to a cemetery. Dickinson’s view on death was never one of something to be feared she almost romanized death, in her poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death”, she actually personifies death while narrating from beyond the grave. In the first stanza she states “I could not stop for

In the poem, “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 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

To understand the extent that Dickinson’s modernist tendencies shine through in Adrienne Rich’s writings, it is important to first explore the impact Dickinson had on Rich’s life and compositions in general. It is no accident that Rich adapts styles and themes from Dickinson’s poetry; many parallels can be drawn between Dickinson’s and Rich’s life, including how “she [like Dickinson] set herself apart [from society’s framework] in order to define her own emotional and social territory” (Martin, 171). Also, both writers revered and feared their fathers, even though both chose to pit themselves “in opposition to [their fathers], to live according to [their] own premises” (Langdell, 166). Although Rich states that she could not have lived her life the way Emily Dickinson does in her essay “Vesuvius at Home: the Power of Emily Dickinson (1975),” she also admits that she has “come to understand her necessities [and] could have been a witness in her defense” (Rich, 158). Rich admires Dickinson, even calling some poems of her own mere “imitations”

In Dickinson's "My Life Had Stood—A Loaded Gun", I interpreted the poem literally, thinking the poem was really about a gun and the relationship with its owner. But as I read the poem more and more, I felt the power and rage engulfed into this piece. I also gathered that, like most of Dickinson's poetry,

In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death “ (448), the speaker of the poem is a woman who relates about a situation after her death. The speaker personifies death as a polite and considerate gentleman who takes her in a carriage for a romantic journey; however, at the end of this poem, she finishes her expedition realizing that she has died many years ago.

Emily Dickinson’s reclusive life was arguably a result of her proposed bi-polar disorder. This life and disorder unduly influenced the themes of her poetry. She chose not to associate herself with society and volumes of her poems, published posthumously, examine this idea as well as the themes of nature and death. The clearest examples of these themes are presented in the following analysis of just of few of her