Emily Dickinson, a “strict” and “private” woman of the “upper-middle-class”(Unger), strived to keep her life under her control, so the world is fortunate to have the poem “My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun” as well as her other poems. She was a cautious, only allowing those in her “personal correspondence” (Unger) to witness the beauty of her poems, until her sister, Lavinia, went against her wishes and published her poems after her death (Bloom). Dickinson had strictly wished to have her works burned, an astonishing two thousand poems, and if the wishes were met, the world would not have gained a “great treasure” (Bloom). Along with her secluded poems and life, most facts are known about Dickinson have been “[myths], wild suppositions, half-truths, and a few outright lies” (Bloom), so it is not surprising when critics and readers have experienced controversies over the “multitude of different interpretations” (Bauer) of her poem due to the misinterpretations of her life. Although Dickinson has established a extreme…show more content… Previously, the reader has comprehended the gun and the doe relating to the women of society, while the hunter was the suppressor of women and the men of society. The men in Dickinson’s life were considered “‘preceptors’” of her emotional side, and with these teachers of her emotional side, she was able to “[live her] life on the emotional level with great intensity” and incorporated “vividly rendered emotions and observation” (Magill). Throughout her life, the men of her life could not have been seen as suppressors to her fame, so the only person we can turn to Dickinson herself with her constant seclusion (Magill), but her works have seen to “revive the reputations of forgotten women authors” (Unger). This accomplishment has allowed women to stand strong, and push through the oppression they faced in the field or writing that, at the time, was dominated by
