My life had stood- a Loaded Gun: Structure & Language Techniques

Structure and Form:

The poem is composed of six quatrains (four-line stanzas) adhering to a syllabic structure rather than a strict meter.
The rhyme scheme changes throughout the poem but generally follows an ABCB pattern, typical of Dickinson’s work.
Enjambment aids the flow of the poem’s narrative, guiding the reader’s eye across line breaks and contributing to the poem’s suspenseful tone.

Imagery and Metaphor:

Dickinson uses the metaphor of the loaded gun to probe issues of power, control, and possibly self-assertion.
In the opening lines, the speaker self-identifies as an object, a ‘Loaded Gun’, reflecting a state of suppressed potential annotated by the feeling of danger and destructiveness.
The hunter is seen as an extension of the gun and vice versa - an examination of merging identities or symbiosis.
The ‘smile’, ‘Yellow Eye’ and ‘emphatic Thumb’ personify the gun, increasing the sense of threat and power.

Repetition and Diction:

The repetitive use of ‘and’ at the beginning of sentences establishes a rhythmic, incantatory effect, building tension.
Dickinson’s concise diction and use of paradox (“The Doe… Had power to kill”) underscore the layers of meaning in her poetry.
The use of capitalization is an important Dickinsonian device, adding emphasis and drawing attention to key themes - in this case, the Gun, the Owner, among others.

Themes:

Power and Control: The poem wrestles with the paradox of power - while the gun cannot act alone, it holds a lethal power that the hunter cannot exert without it.
Identity and Self-realization: The speaker’s self-recognition as the ‘Loaded Gun’ initiates a journey of self-exploration and realization.
Anger, Violence, and Death: The speaker-weapon is capable of great destruction - both hunting game and killing a man, suggesting themes of anger, violence, and mortality.
Passage of Time: The emerging themes of dusk, life, and death, embodied in the hunting expedition, face-off with the doe, and the poetic voice’s acknowledgement of eternity as a state of perpetuity, hint towards the passage of time and life’s transience.

Note: This poem also shares similarities and could be paired for comparative analysis with other Dickinson’s poems such as “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died-“ and “Because I could not stop for Death”, revolving around the themes of death, power, control, and time.