The main literary strategy in My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun by Emily Dickinson is a metaphor of a gun and its master that is used to represent a wife and her husband. This poem is about objectification and lack of agency in women in the 19th century. The gun/hunter metaphor is the topic. In the poem, the woman is literally reduced to an object at the disposal of the hunter/master/husband. In this poem, the reader is faced with the challenge of identifying who the speaker is and who the gun metaphorically represents (Forman ). To help solve this puzzle, Angela Estes asks, “For whom in the nineteenth century would pleasure and power be problematic if they had to be expressed?” (XX). A woman speaking is the most obvious and viable answer. If the speaker is a woman, Estes states that the poem is “the speaker's plight depending on the actions of another for the release of power.” Because power and strong will are traditionally characterized as masculine qualities, it would be difficult for a 19th-century woman to express these characteristics without appearing as if she had lost touch with her femininity (Estes, X). Society pushes women to be passive and may look down on women who are strong-willed and powerful. Therefore, women could only express power and will together with their husband's power and will. This is symbolized by the fact that the weapon can only express its explosive power and its will to kill when the hunter pulls the trigger. The gun is literally incapable of expressing itself or acting on its own because it is an inanimate object. By metaphorical extension, the poem shows us how women are forced to become like inanimate objects, discouraged from expressing their desires... in the middle of paper... or for the sake of the gun, they are valued for what it can do. In other words, they are valued for extrinsic or instrumental value and not for any intrinsic value. When the gun metaphorically represents a wife, it implies that she too is valued only for her extrinsic or instrumental value and not for her intrinsic value. If the hunter appreciates the gun only because it gives him the power to kill, on the other side of the metaphor the husband appreciates his wife only for what she can do for him and does not appreciate her for who she is. The gun and hunter metaphor is used to represent a relationship between husband and wife where the power dynamics are uneven. Using a metaphor where the woman is an inanimate object illustrates her lack of agency and objectification because she is represented by something that has no agency and is literally an object..