My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
by Emily Dickinson
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My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – Symbolism, Imagery & Wordplay

There’s more to a poem than meets the eye.

Life and Death

Though many elements of this poem are ambiguous, we know that there is some sort of collaboration taking place between the speaker’s life and the anger she feels. At times, these two concepts...

The Gun

The gun is a symbol of power and violence. Guns are dangerous, because they have the power to take life away instantly. By introducing us to a gun in the first line, our speaker makes sure that we...

Nature (and its dark side)

Our speaker brings up some fairly violent examples of nature in this poem: a doe being hunted in "Sovereign Woods," a volcanic mountain with a deadly track record, and a species of duck that plucks...