When I read the line, "He could almost pity these mild cultivated people, who would be blown sky high, like bales of wool and barrels of apples, one of these days by the gunpowder that was in him." I couldn't help but relate it to one of Emily Dickinson's poems, in which she compares life to a loaded gun. However, the two connections to a gun are almost opposites. When Woolf describes it, it's the thing that has already blown, but Dickinson uses it as something that has not and may not ever blow. So why does this matter? I think it's interesting to note that like life, a gun can either make a huge impact and explode on the people around it, or it can remain unused and carry in it the potential for more. Which one is better? Each author would defend her own use of the word, but in my opinion (and in a completely non-violent manner), I would rather be a gun that fired. If my sole purpose is to shoot something, that's what I should do, I guess.
So here's Emily Dickinson's poem, "754":
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--
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