Kiran Gill
Emily Dickinson's 'My Life had stood-a Loaded Gun-': Revealing the Power of a Woman's Words
Kathleen E. Gilligan writes this paper in order to better explain to the reader the purpose and the hidden meanings in the poem “My Life has stood-a-Loaded Gun” by Emily Dickinson. The author is trying to get the reader of this piece to better understand how the use of Emily Dickinson’s word choice and punctuation were used throughout her poems to help enhance the wring and depict a deeper meaning then one may interpret.
The intended audience seems to be a college professor or any individual who may be attempting to better understand Emily Dickinson and her poetry The author is very well aware of her audience as her entire piece is focused on “My Life had stood-a- Loaded Gun”, its multiple meanings and the many techniques Emily Dickinson uses in order to get her point across. The subject of this piece, as stated, is Emily Dickinson’s poem and a stanza-by-stanza interpretation of the double meanings and the hidden interpretations of this poem. The writer of this piece also starts the piece off with biographical information about Emily Dickinson. This is done in order to give the reader a better insight on Dickinson’s background and the reason for her point of view on certain issues.
The thesis of this particular article is, how Emily Dickinson’s, seemingly random capitalization, lack of punctuation or obsession with dashes, and incorrect use of grammar were all done deliberately, sometimes to highlight the message that would have otherwise gone unheeded.” The author of this passage then goes to give an example, and this poem “My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—” becomes the main subject of this piece. Gilligan attempts to prove that this poem has a second meaning, a hidden layer that not all are able to interpret, it is about a woman and how much power her words hold. The different stanzas in the poem organize the arrangement of ideas. Every paragraph represents a stanza and the stanzas go in chronological order. This is done effectively, it is easy to follow the piece and know where the author is referring to in the poem.
The language used by Gilligan is formal, but not too formal to a point where it is hard to understand. Gilligan uses various quotes numerous times throughout the passage. These quotes come from Emily Dickinson’s poem; these are used as support to help Gilligan make her point. Transitions are used adequately to make the text unified and coherent and the organization is apparent and effective.
Gilligan, the writer of the passage, does indeed build a strong ethos, however, by bringing the opinion of a credible and well-educated outside source, Gilligan could better her ethos and may come off as more reliable. There are many restrictions which high-school teachers often place on students and a new insight I have gained by reading this piece is that these restrictions do not always better writing, often times they hinder the growing process. This piece of writing does contradict many “rules” we may have learned in the past, because every body paragraph is not identical in format with a CD and 2 CM’s, however this writing is effective in getting its point across. By extending the limits, a better writing piece is produced then one that could have been produced if this writer was also confound to the limits we often times are.
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