My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun - Example Essay

            “None stir the second time –

            On whom I lay a Yellow Eye –

            Or an emphatic Thumb – “

Discuss ways in which Dickinson uses setting in ‘My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun’.

Setting is important to the work of Dickinson. We see this in the poem ‘The last Night that She lived’ where “Her final Room” is representation of her grave being a house and so bringing comfort despite her forthcoming entrapment. Setting is also seen in the poem ‘Because I could not stop for Death’, here the “swelling of the ground” conveys the earth dug out from her grave to entail her to rebirth instead of death. However, it is in ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ that we see the most clear depiction of setting in Dickinson’s work. The poem explores how the speaker becomes a faithful hound to their “Master” in a bid to die, despite the inability to escape.

In ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ the central symbol is the “Yellow Eye” which represents the spark of the gun as it is fired; it could also be seen that the light is representative of the end of life, despite this being impossible for the speaker who is without “the power to die”. The reference of volcanoes conveys the erupting pleasures as the “cordial light” goes off. This light, likewise to the “Yellow Eye”, portrays the gun firing, and the oxymoronic use of “cordial” explores the pain as being someone else’s, most likely the pain suffered by women. Setting is also linked to death is ‘Because I could not stop for Death’, here the “carriage” picks up the speaker and brings joy at the forthcoming prospect of death; death becomes a desire and medicine to the speaker’s depression. ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ conveys male power through the use of setting; the “Mountains straight reply” which is representation of a quick response as the speaker takes on a male form and gains importance.

The poetry in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ becomes affected by the “light” and therefore has a damaging effect. Despite the damage, there is a constant iambic tetrametre and trimetre in a bid to provide comfort from the light. ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ likewise features iambic tetrametre and trimetre to restrict the speaker, however restrictions are released through the hyphens. Hyphens are used to explore the tension that is exploding as the gun is fired. Once the firing is over, the hyphens are representative of a calming breathing, going in and out, to provide control over frustration. Hyphens are the key structural technique throughout the poem, and so as well as portraying control and explored tension; they are also representative of an incomplete thought. The reader gets the sense that something is missing or being hidden, this may well be hidden fear as the speaker comes to face the phallic “Master” killing the yonic, a incomplete power battle, as ultimately the woman holds the gun.

‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ features the detachment of body parts, possibly in a bid to avoid fear taking over the speaker’s entire body. An “emphatic Thumb”, the trigger pulled by an unknown thumb despite the knowledge that the speaker fired, causes the gun’s spark. Body parts are also illustrated through the “Loaded Gun” which is phallic imagery; the deification emphasises the potential for rage, danger and destruction, and the gun being ready to fire and destroy live. The theme of death runs throughout Dickinson’s poetry and can be seen in ‘The last Night that She lived’, where death brings comfort and takes the speaker home. The speaker describes themselves as a “Reed” bending to the Water to die, however like the speaker in ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ she is unable to die and instead will live a life of immortality. The speaker of ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’ closes the poem with the upset of having the “power to kill” but not die, which is her ultimate desire, so we see the destruction of female hopes through male dominance and her loyalty to allow him to die in her place, “He longer must – than I”.

Ultimately, setting is crucial to the work of Dickinson. We see throughout her poems that death is a prominent setting and provides an end to the speaker’s depression, however, it is likely that the speaker is unable to die in every one of Dickinson’s poems and instead face “Immortality”. In the poem ‘My life had stood – a Loaded Gun’, the setting is ultimately one of male dominance, in which females have the ability to kill, as desired by men, but not meet their own ambitions of dying.