ED-Loaded Gun Flashcards
‘My Life had stood –a loaded Gun –/ in corners’
Conceit + Past perfect tense
Caesura + dash
→life = ‘loaded gun’ + ‘had stood’
→sense latent potential languishing ‘in corners’
→separate off female exp. from purpose/dignity
‘identified’ + ‘carried me away’
Passive diction
→speaker’s relief upon being ‘identified’ + sense ecstatic transport through masc. selection (‘carried me away’) / ED crit. fem. passivity, as if awaiting ‘selection’ or actualization through (masc) ‘Owner’
‘And now we roam’ + ‘and now we hunt the Doe.’
Incl pn+ predatory verbs anaphora + switch to pres tense
→Inc. ‘we’ + predatory verbs
→speaking feminized gun feels part of + exults in masc. exp of hunting ‘the Doe,’ ironic b/c hunting doe represents patriarc. control over/possession of female exp.
→gives jolt of immediacy to previously inactive exp.
‘Every time I speak for Him / the Mountains straight reply’
‘I smile’ + ‘Vesuvian face’ + ‘let its pleasure through’
Continuing conceit
Adj ‘smiling’ + erotic simile
→speaker (mistakenly) assumes equal. w. masc owner b/c ‘speaks for him’ (i.e. shoots), creating echo thru (+ sense of dominion over) l’scape (‘straight reply’)
→‘smiling’ gun = pleasure in discharging light upon the ‘valley glow,’ Pleasure incr. by simile (Vesuvian face letting its pleasure through.’)
→Despite speaker’s pleasure, reader detects that the gun/speaker is not truly autonomous (cannot fire itself) / also senses that agency is often achieved through violence in a patriarchal world
‘at night’ + ‘I guard my Master’s head’ + ’Tis better than the Eider Duck’s / Deep Pillow -to have shared -‘
Connotations of ‘guard’ + erotic setting + hyperbolic simile
→speaker prefers self-denying work of ‘guarding’ than intimacy + equality of shared pillow
→ED criticizes fem. identity which seeks self-actualization + equality (ironically) by becoming ancillary to their ‘Masters’: husbands, fathers, or to will of patriarchy in general
