My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun – Themes

"My Life had stood" is all about our speaker’s relationship to violence. Without knowing what it is that the speaker would kill, and without knowing exactly what would kill her, we know for s...

Power is influence. A guy with a gun has a lot of power, or at least thinks he does. A leader with public speaking skills has power. Power is always a two-sided equation. Something or someone has p...

We don't know whether the speaker is a man or a woman in "My Life had stood," but there are certain clues in this poem that suggest a conflict between male and female identities. For example, the p...

In "My Life had stood," the theme of mortality is closely tied to the transition from life to death. The speaker wrestles with the idea of death approaching (whether suddenly or slowly). In some wa...