My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun -- - A poem by Emily Dickinson

Poet: Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson Art)
Poem: 754. My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun --
Volume: Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson
Year: Published/Written in 1955

Comment 16 of 16, added on December 8th, 2009 at 3:30 PM.
Yeah right
Papa Smurf does not speak for all Canadians... maybe only the stupid ones. I love Dickinson.

Lifelive from Canada

Comment 15 of 16, added on January 7th, 2009 at 8:25 AM.

dude this poem sucks so much i mean come on it really isnt worth talking about it. us people from canada dont think this should be around for i dont like the poem like everyone else in canada

papa smurf from Canada

Comment 14 of 16, added on April 6th, 2008 at 6:09 PM.

This is about life long rage. She is the gun and she has had to be reclusive and live unnoticed, in corners of the rooms of her life. Had she been a man she may have had the opportunity to express herself in public, but in her society that was not possible.

She protects her patriarchal family and society by not expressing herself, but at the greatest cost to her - she has no agency, and this is the cause of her rage. In public she is the dutiful daughter, and even with the false smile - false because it is Vesuvian (after Mt. Vesuvius, which is a volcano which erupts, and when it does - did - it killed everyone - how much rage is that!)

Even at night she has to protect the paternal image. To have shared that soft pillow made of goose down would smother her, so she stays guarded and doesn't sleep on what looks so soft but is so dangerous.

She is so committed to keeping her stoical place in the paternal society that she will defend it - she is foe to anyone who is foe to "him." The emphatic thumb, that one can suck for comfort as a child can also have a "Freudian" interpretation, of something that is swollen, and the Vesuvian spew can be thought of that way as well. This doesn't mean that she had sexual relations with her father - rather that she is so enraged that she is stuck in the secondary role, only as guardian or protector of those who keep her from the freedom of being her own person - and she has to do this seemingly willingly.

And then in the last paragraph, she states that even though she could outlive her father, her family, men in general, she had better die first because the world is not a big enough place for both (all) of them and she would like to kill except that she has been taught that she must not. And she cannot even kill herself because that is also forbidden.

She is in a box from where there is no escape. This is not a love poem. This is a poem that shows anger in its rawest form. This is pure rage.

Susan from United States

Are you looking for more information on this poem? Perhaps you are trying to analyze it? The poem, My Life had stood -- a Loaded Gun --, has received 16 comments. Click here to read them, and perhaps post a comment of your own. Of course you can also always discuss poems by Emily Dickinson with others on the American Poems poetry forum!