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General
Most readers feel the power of this poem, which is based on rage. The speaker compares her life
to an unused loaded gun and finds joy in fulfilling its purpose to kill. Even if you have
never felt a rage so violently that you felt destructive or explosive, can you imagine what such a state
must feel like? Does this poem convincingly portray such a rage?
The force of this poem strikes me every time I read it, and I am moved by it though its exact
meaning eludes me. For the critic David Porter, its message lies "in its very indefiniteness. Significance
rests not in what the poem says but in what it leaves out, what it cannot get into its words and therefore
into consciousness." Dickinson may be attempting to express the Inexpressible, or perhaps she is
struggling with what was inexpressible for her. In any event, I agree with Adrienne Rich's view of this
poem:
...I think it is a poem about possession by the daemon, about the dangers and risks of such possession
if you are a woman, about the knowledge that power in a woman can seem destructive, and that you
cannot live without the daemon once it has possessed you. . . .
I do not pretend to have--I don't even wish to
have--explained this poem, accounted for its every image; it will reverberate with new tones long after
my words about it have ceased to matter. But I think that for us, at this time, it is a central poem in
understanding Emily Dickinson, and ourselves, and the condition of the woman artist, particularly in the
nineteenth century. It seems likely that the nineteenth-century woman poet, especially, felt the medium
of poetry as dangerous. . . Emily Dickinson's is the only poetry in English by a woman of that century
which pierces so far beyond the ideology of the "feminine" and the conventions of womanly feeling. To
write it at all, she had to be willing to enter chambers of the self in which
Ourself behind ourself, concealed--
Should startle most--
and to relinquish control there, to take those risks she had to create a relationship to the outer world
where she could feel in control.
I will briefly discuss the view that this poem grows out of her anger at the narrow life allowed to Dickinson
by her society and by her father. She felt forced to practice her art privately, that is, she wrote her poetry
privately and shared it with only a few family members and friends. To be able to dedicate herself to
poetry, she withdrew into seclusion. It was a heavy price to pay to be a poet. This poem, with its
slaughter and its "Vesuvian" voice, expresses her rage at the restrictions on the woman poet, her sense
of the power of language, and the sense of control that writing poetry gave her.
Try reading this poem by feeling the larger impressions, don't worry
about understanding or puzzling out every line and word.
Analysis of Poem
In the past, she "had" stood in the corner, without a purpose. Then a hunter found her, knew her purpose
since he was her "Master," and used her to express her purpose. The gun can be seen as language; the
hunter's shooting-- the expression of the gun--is creating poetry. The "doe" (female deer) is hunted and
presumably killed, just as women writers have to kill or suppress a part of themselves to write. Hunting
in the wood re-establishes a relationship with nature, a frequent topic in Dickinson's poetry. It also
gives a sense of control (the Woods are "Sovereign"). The
Hunter/Owner/Master may symbolize the poet-part of the speaker, poetic inspiration, or poetry itself--or
something else altogether. The speaker prefers to stand guard over her Master rather than share a soft
downy pillow; she rejects the softer life, the homelier alternative. The speaker's purpose, power, and
control are destructive and bring the her joy and satisfaction, until, perhaps, the last stanza. The last
stanza is difficult, tangled and perhaps indicates some confusion in Dickinson's thinking.
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