Emily Dickenson's poem "My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun" seems too be a highly sexualized and angry poem. Emily Dickinson talks about about an unused gun and compares herself to it. I'm not exactly sure what the meaning of the poem is, but it seems that, she, as a virgin is liking herself to a virgin gun. And when the gun goes off, the gun has an enormous pleasure that it had not felt before. This is to be likened to her loss of virginity.
The most interesting point to me is the irony. She is liking the act of the creation of life to death and killing: the forced end of life. This creates a very interesting parallel in the poem.
I think this poems structure is very difficult because it is difficult to know what she is actually trying to say. The language flows extremely well but the content is very difficult. I'm not sure i grasped everything that she is trying to say in the way that she meant them.
I think this poem has alot of different meanings, but its main portrayal of anger is depicted clearly. The writer is expressing her anger which she has supressed, and even though hes smiles, she has so muh built up anger that seh can explode-just waiting to happen.
ReplyDeleteDavid- this is great. Can you make a connection between how virginity is depicted by Dickinson to the portrayal of virginity in Marvell's poem?
ReplyDeleteMoheni- yes the suppression of emotions is depicted as the loaded gun standing in a corner (1-2). But remember that the poet is not necessarily the speaker.