in this presentation, I want to explain about fogurative language that are contained in Emily Dickinson's poem - My Life Had Stood - a Loaded Gun -
I hope that this presentation will be useful for those who are interested. Thank You.
2. ABSTRACT
In This presentation, the writer tries to
analyze a poem, entitled “My Life Had
Stood - A Loaded Gun" written by Emily
Dickinson. The purpose of this writing is to
analyze the poem intrinsically. The theories
that used are textual, contextual, and
hypertextual. The author use close reading
as a method. The writer found that this
poem is dominated by figurative languange,
such as methapor, symbols, and
personification. It can be concluded that
figurative languages held important role in
order to understand the poem.
3. Introduction
Analyzing poetry is an activity that concern in find
out the true meaning that the poet tried to explain
about through the intrinsic element. It tries to help
you look at a poem closely, to offer you a wider and
more accurate vocabulary with which to express
what poem say to you. It will suggest ways to judge
for yourself the poems you read. In this paper, the
author choose My life had stood – a loaded gun –
written by Emily Dickinson to be analyzed. This
poem, however, contains a lot of figurative
language, such as metaphor and symbols to be
analyzed.
4. Biography of Emily
Dickinson
Emily Dickinson is a 18th century writer. She was
born on December 10, 1830 and grew up
in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her eccentricities of
punctuation, not to mention the strangeness of
her metamorphose and rhymes, may derives
from her sense that she was her own and only
audience. She is probably the greatest female
poet of our language, and every year her
audience grows wider. Dickinson died of kidney
disease in Amherst, Massachusetts, on May 15,
1886 at the age of 56. Dickinson's remarkable
work was published after her death.
5. My Life Had Stood – A Loaded Gun –
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
In Corners – till a Day
The Owner passed – identified –
And carried Me away –
And now we roam in Sovereign
Woods-
And now We hunt the Doe –
And every time I speak for Him –
The Mountains straight reply –
And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow –
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through –
And when at Night – Our good Day
done
I guard My Master's Head –
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow – to have shared –
To foe of His – I'm deadly foe –
None stir the second time –
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye –
Or an emphatic Thumb –
Though I than He – may longer live
He longer must – than I –
For I have but the power to kill,
Without – the power to die –
6. Metaphor
A metaphor, like a simile makes a
comparisons between two unlike things, but
it does so implicitly, without words such as
like or as.
According to Holman in A hand book to
Literature(1960:98) : “Metaphor is an
implied analogy which imaginatively
identifies one object with the another and
ascribed to the first one more of the
qualities of the second or invest the first
with emotional or imaginative qualities
associated with the second.”
7. Metaphor in “My Life Had Stood – A Loaded
Gun –”
Example of metaphor :
Stanza 2 Line 6
And now We hunt the Doe –
This line show metaphor. The reader will learn that “Hunt” is
not is a metaphor for letting anger loose.
Stanza 1 Lines 1
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
The gun is a symbol of power and violence. Guns are
dangerous, because they have the power to take life away
instantly. The gun in this poem, becomes an extended
metaphor throughout it becomes representative of the
speaker’s power. It is loaded, she can hunt with it, and it’s
deadly
8. Symbols
A symbol may be roughly defined as something
that means more what it is. According to Meyer
(1990:581) : “symbol is something that represents
something else. An object, person, place, event, or
action can suggest more than its literal meaning.”
The meaning suggested by a symbols are
determined by the context in which they appear.
9. Example of symbols :
Stanza 3 Line 13
And when at Night – Our good Day done –
In this line we see "Night’ and "Day" contrasted with one
another. In this way, we understand "Night" to be a symbol for
death, and "Day" to be a symbol for life. We get the sense
that our speaker is approaching death at this point, her day’s
work being done.
Stanza 2 Line 6
And now We hunt the Doe –
The doe is a symbol for the thing that our speaker is angry at
or that needs killing. It is interesting to note that does
are female deer. In this way, the concept of gender is stirred
up in the world of the poem.
Symbols in “My Life Had Stood – A Loaded
Gun –”
10. Personification
Personification consist in giving the
attributes of a human being to an animal,
an object, or an idea. It is really a subtype
of metaphor, an implied comparison in
which the figurative tern of the comparison
is always a human being
11. Personification in “My Life Had Stood –
A Loaded Gun –”
Example of personification :
Stanza 1 Line 1
My Life had stood – a Loaded Gun –
The reference here to "My Life" is personified, because
it is an abstracted concept that is treated as if it were
able to stand like a person.
Stanza 2 Line 8
The Mountains straight reply –
The "Mountains" are personified, because they reply to
our speaker. This could mean that the mountains create
an echo, repeating her words, but the language here
leads us to believe that the mountains are doing some
chit-chatting.
12. Conclusion
My Life Had Stood – a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson
is a short poem of twenty-four lines divided into six
stanzas. Here Emily Dickinson uses metaphor, symbols
and personification to explain more of her intention. The
poem is written in the first person from the point of view
of a speaker who compares her life to “a Loaded
Gun.”The speaker possesses an uncanny insight into
the workings of her inner self, and is able to see the
interplay of experience, emotion, and intellect with
incredible clarity. Anger can carry us away whether we’d
like it to or not. While it can be strangely rewarding to
get angry, giving you a sort of high, this process can
also be highly destructive. Feelings of invincibility may
be a cover for something deeper and darker than anger
– something that is harder to express.
13. References
Kennedy, X.J. 1966. LITERATURE , An introduction to
Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Toronto : Little, Brown and
Company.
Perrine, Laurance. 1988. Literature, Structure, Sound and
Sense. Florida : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Franklin, R. W. 1999. The Poems of Emily Dickinson.
Harvard University Press.
Meyer, Martin. 1995. The Bedford Introduction to Literature.
Boston : Bedford Books of M. Martin Press
Holman, C. Hough. 1960. A handbook to Literature. New York
: The Odsseys Press
Kirkpatrick, Laurance, William. 1968. Poetry with pleasure.
America: Library of Congress.
