Two More Questions about my life had stood - a loaded gun, an addition to Mr. Gilmour's post By Zhong

The first question I had about this poem originated from my different reading of this poem from Mr. Gilmour's and I might be very wrong about this. My first thought when reading this poem was that the Master was God and that the poet recognized herself as the object, defender, soldier, and weapon of God. She roamed, hunted, smiled, and suffered with her Master. However, if that was the case, then the last stanza does not really make sense to me. If the Master was indeed God, then what does it mean for the poet to say "Though I than He - may longer live?"

The second question I have about this poem is also in the stanza:

"He longer must - than I -

For I have but the power to kill,

Without - the power to die -"

I couldn't help but feel that this last stanza reminds me of and puts an emphasis on the fact that the poet, as the loaded gun, was merely an object of this Master, that she was always going to be enslaved by this Master, despite all the things they went through in the previous stanzas. I wonder if anyone else reads this last stanza this way, that there is something worrisome behind the relationship between the loaded gun and the Master. And if yes, how we can relate it to our interpretations of who the Master is.

Comments

  1. Duong TrinhApril 4, 2021 at 10:37 PM

    I read the poem as a sad love story in which the poet has an unrequited love towards the Owner.

    The first stanza, in my imagination, is the cliché scenario where a person, like a loaded gun, is in the corners the whole time, waiting until used and seen by the Owner, the poet's crush. There's no active attention to the Gun from the Owner, as indicated by his indifference, leaving the Gun for so long in inconspicuous places, where everything's beauty is blurred. Also, Dickinson describes him to be passing by the Gun as if the Owner doesn't intend to pick it up in the first place. He not on purpose catches a glimpse of the Gun, comes up with the idea of going hunting, picks it up, and carries it with him to the forest. As such, there seems no interconnection in purposes of the Owner and the Loaded Gun's meeting. The former thinks of the Gun's usefulness while the latter of meaningfulness given by the Owner.

    I agree with you that the Owner might not be God. If so, in the second stanza, it would be a bit self-contradicting that the Owner hunts a Doe in his own sovereign woods. Why is God so base and cruel to kill an animal for whatever reason? The roaming is also not relevant to the Owner as a hunter because he must aim for hunting. Therefore, the fact that "we roam in sovereign woods," in my opinion, is a normal feeling of the one feeling loved when being with her crush without knowing the aim of their walking together.

    Nevertheless, again, we see the one-sidedness of this relationship. In the second half of this stanza, the poet has a monologue, as written as "speak for Him," without Him replying at least with praises. Only the mountains reply to her acting as his hunting weapon. How sad and lonely!

    It is fascinating that she compares the happiness of being beside her crush with a Vesuvian face, something eruptive of joy but destructive. She could become dangerous to keep the feeling of being loved by killing many more animals. However, what if the Owner's prey does not end up at animals but extends to humans? She would never leave anyone her Owner wants to kill alive, as she says:

    To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
    None stir the second time -

    But then, I'm wondering if the Owner will be her last target. Because she is so much in love with sharing a pillow with him and guarding his head, the only way to keep him there with her forever is to put him to death.

    The last stanza is her regret for the fact that she may live longer than him. He is manifestly not God, for he is mortal. "He longer must - than I -"is the necessity she considers of his life, such that his presence keeps her life meaningful. Nonetheless, as long as he is mortal, what should she do to extend his life to infinity? Kill him, I guess, because she has the power to kill. From this, his death would be figuratively an immortal life. On the other hand, the last stanza could be understood as the poet's realization that her life and the Owner are two parallel lines. He is mortal, while she is not, because she has no power to die. Why not? Is she suggesting that her memories of him will be kept forever, both in happiness and melancholy?

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    Replies
    1. Duong TrinhApril 4, 2021 at 11:03 PM

      If so, then I think her lack of power to die is even much worse than the unrequited love she has to the Owner. While the arising of emotions is uncontrollable, forgetting him is in her control to move on and keep finding love from another. However, she doesn't choose to forget him, and even deems that remembering him is a way to keep her alive. Sad! Sad! Sad! I was about to say miserable, but I realized I shouldn't have judged her so.

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  2. Krishnan VenkateshApril 12, 2021 at 1:47 PM

    I think you're right, Ms. Trinh. This poem has so much erotic charge. The last line has such a terrible vulnerability: I have all these overwhelming feelings that I am now stuck with forever and don't know what to do with. That last line is another way of saying perhaps that I WANT to die. To support Mr. Zhong's more chaste reading: Could the loaded gun be a poem? and the Master a poet?

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