Emily Dickinson’s poem “My Life had stooda Loaded Gun” is a powerful statement of the speaker’s choice to forego the accepted roles of her time and embrace a taboo existence, a life open only to men. The speaker does so wholeheartedly and without reservation, with any and all necessary force, exulting in her decision. She speaks with great power and passion, tolerating no interference, and wills herself to maintain this choice for her entire life.
The mix of masculine and feminine images, their juxtaposition, and their occasional transformation across the gender line, is inherent in the message of the poem. The opening stanza begins with a series of masculine images: “a Loaded gun” (1), “The Owner” (3later identified as “He”17, 21). The ambiguous image of the fourth lineis her being carried away by her own love to be enraptured or defiled. The second stanza resolves this question.
Suddenly the speaker is “We,” “roam in Sovreign woods” (5), indicating an acceptance of the relationship. Now the speaker resumes alternation between images suggestive of gender: masculine “hunt” (6), “Mountains” (8), “Vesuvian” (11), “Day” (13),and feminine “woods” (5), “the Doe” (6), “Valley” (10), “Night” (13), “the Eider-Duck’s / Deep Pillow” (15-16). There is a further mingling of gender images in the first stanza: the masculine gun as a passive (i. e. , feminine) instrument, standing in a corner, awaiting the masculine empowerment.
Likewise, the “cordial light / Upon the Valley glow” (9-10), constitutes a soft, feminine image, until the next line reveals the glow is from a volcanic eruption- an extremely masculine image. This mixture and blurring of sexual cues reflects the message of the poem, the speaker’s adoption of a role crossing gender lines but still being impotent to an extent. While there is very little rhyming in this poem, one rhyme stands out: “Doe” (6), and “foe” (17). Again we see the pairing of masculine and feminine images. And both are faced with death from the speaker.
They also rhyme with the cross-gendered use of “glow” (10) mentioned above. The effect is to accentuate the blending and confusion of gender roles built by the poem. In the fourth stanza the speaker continues to affirm herself as being outside the normal bounds of gender roles. She proclaims her role in guarding “My Master’s Head” (14) to be “better than the Eider-Duck’s Deep Pillowto have shared” (15-16). The speaker is happier sheltering her true loveher life as a Poet, rather than one of the banal poetesses of her daythan she would be sharing a man’s bed.
She accepts the role of non-conformist gladly. She proclaims the power of her sentiment, as well as her absolute resolution in defending it, in the fifth stanza: “I’m deadly foe” (17). This is not a whim, but the reasoned, considered decision of a strong adult woman. Her very look is enough to destroy any foe: “None stir the second time / On whom I lay a Yellowed eye” (18-19). And her “Emphatic Thumb” (20) conjures an image of an adversary crushed, as if her opponent were capable of being destroyed with the most minimal of effort.
Without the final, enigmatic stanza this poem would simply be the poesy of a braggart. In the first lines her will seems to be bent on ensuring “He” outlives her: “Though I than Hemay longer live / He longer mustthan I” (21-22). Does she ask that her poetry outlive her? Possible, but unlikely, given the lack of interest by the publishers of the day. Or perhaps she fears that she will outlive her ability to produce poetry. It is impossible to say with any confidence. Finally, although she has the “power to kill” (23), the active, masculine ability to destroy, she is “Withoutthe power to die” (24).
Again we see the passivity of the “Loaded gun” (1), unable to act without some animating masculine force. She means that she has the power to destroy the poet within, but cannot then escape from the role of reclusive outsider she has sacrificed so much to attain. Although there is an irreconcilable ambiguity to this last stanza, the uncertainty somehow does not detract from the power of the work, but rather adds to it. With “Loaded Gun” Dickinson proclaims herself a warrior, ready to kill or die in defense of her self-definition, that of Poet.