Firearms carry with them a certain sense of fear. A person armed with a weapon is more intimidating than an unarmed person. Both Emily Dickinson and Sarah Jewett express their ideas along these lines. These two writers use weapons to express their power and their masculinity. For Dickinson, guns are something she identifies with. One of his poems begins, “My life was at a standstill – a loaded gun –.” Jewett, on the other hand, uses guns as an attribute that adds to the already present distrust of Sylvia, the main character of the short story The White Heron, towards men. Although these methods of using firearms in literature are different, they both fulfill the writer's intention to describe and tell their story. For Dickinson, guns are used more descriptively than for Jewett. In “My Life had Stood,” Dickinson sees herself as a loaded gun waiting to go. In this sense, guns are pleasant and used to describe human emotions. Using the voice of a loaded gun, Dickinson transfers her thoughts and feelings into the context of a hunter's gun. Just as a loaded gun has no purpose in itself, Dickinson's hidden thoughts and feelings were also devoid of a dead end purpose. Nevertheless, the goal comes to both the loaded gun and Dickinson. As Dickinson says in her writings, “[t]he owner passes – identified – and carries me away” (quote). The “owner” symbolizes language. Just as the owner is the vessel that allowed the weapon to be fulfill its function, language allows Dickinson to write poetry, Without language, Dickinson could not function as a writer, just as a gun cannot function without its owner. It is through writing that Dickinson achieves his. objective and is no longer a “loaded weapon”. This poem relates to Dickinson describing her feelings in the middle of the paper with a friend It is at this time that The White Heron was written. During this new transition from life with her husband to life with a friend, she writes a book about a girl's changing perspective on men and her own sexuality. Literature often has a hidden meaning that. can be discovered with careful investigation into the text. Emily Dickinson and Sarah Jewett gracefully integrate gender themes into their stories by using guns as symbols that speak to issues of gender discrimination. These two writers invite us to dwell on many different questions while challenging the reader to reconsider any strongly held beliefs about gender roles. On the surface, these two works are not profoundly profound, but with an observant eye one can clearly see that there is much more to these stories than initially appears..