The Gun

 First line intentionally ambiguous. Pronoun ‘it’ that is the ambiguity. ‘Changes it’ – does it
change the house or the gun? To challenge our assumptions of what a gun is. Initially we
perceive it as unnatural, destructive a weapon. And this challenges everything a gun stands
for. Negative stereotype – do guns or people do that. Reason sentence is isolated –
statement is there to change your mind about the gun.
 By next single line stanza, ambiguity is resolved. It was about the house.
 Suggestion of changing it to an object that brings life not death, is the way that Feaver tries
to challenge our perception of an object. Begin with this contrasting view of ‘death’ and
‘domesticity’.
 ‘Stretched out like something dead itself’ – the gun itself then is a paradox. Made of man-
made material and natural material: ‘wood’ and ‘metal’. Gun is made of two contrasting
elements. However to achieve this, the natural world has had to be ravaged and destroyed
to make the very thing that destroys the natural world further. Complete paradox. Irony of
natural and man-made.
 Here it is in a fully domesticated setting. Not where it should be, incongruous to this setting.
 Simile ‘like something dead itself’ – full of irony, because the gun is full of death and it is for
making other things dead.
 ‘Casts a grey shadow’ – very ominous. Almost like the ‘king of death’.
 Lines jutting over the edge – ‘green-checked cloth’. Precipice, relationship that has reached a
point where its no longer enjoyable, fruitful or satisfying for either person. The gun breaks
the domestic setting, the relationship incongruous to the domestic harmony that is
presented as well. Disruptive.
 Punctuated adverbials that chart the progression of the changes ‘at first’, ‘then’, ‘soon’ –
changes emerge tentatively, slowly, changes are not very visible. ‘Just’ – harmless, playful.
Man-made ‘tins’, ‘orange string’ – tension between natural and man-made. Reluctance to
engage in murderous pursuit.
 ‘Then a rabbit’. Enjambment, clean phrasing, cut off at ‘clean through the head’ –
experience, perhaps ironic in worshipful or perhaps hesitant in its praise. Tentative or
unsure about the direction this gun is taking the relationship.
 Adverbials they chart action, progress and masculine domain and omit anything to do with
the couple themselves (singular process).
 4th stanza – ‘soon’, rapidity at which the pace is gathered with alliteration, verbs, gathers
momentum, just like the skill, the adept killing of the man. Seems almost indiscriminate,
seems sport-like. Nonchalance/ambivalent towards death. Impersonal ‘creatures’ – no
longer a rabbit, ‘fur and feathers’, no specificity with animals that are being killed. Wide
range - mastery full.
 2nd person pronoun ‘your’, ‘you’ overuse – praiseworthy. Revitalised relationship, worshipful.
 Caesura pauses and enjambment, gather pace, bring momentum and excitement and virility
of relationship. By the time it drives towards the end of the stanza, the smilies and
metaphors ‘spring in your step’, ‘like when sex was fresh’ – ironic animalistic behaviour of
man who has become the predator. Become very animalistic character at one with nature
(very thing he seeks to destroy) paradox. He becomes rejuvenated by killing. Paradox with
unity and disunity with nature.
 Poet returns to single line. ‘Gun brings a house alive.’ Ambiguity resolved into another
paradox: life from death. Ultimate paradox. Life springs from death, cyclical – life from
killing, feel alive from our dominion over nature and rendering others lifeless.
 Sense of the change of the poem is the Volta. Metaphor for relationship. Brings rejuvenation
because the first pronoun re-enters the poem. “I join in the cooking” – domestic role the
 speaker joins with, almost as if her position has been rejuvenated. It’s not a submissive,
begrudging acquisition of this role; it’s just as excited as mastery of wielding of the gun.
Present participles (gerund), polysyndetic listing (lots of ands and commas). Overwhelming
passion with her engagement in this process. By association, she, too, has come alive.
Gerund has rejuvenated relationship through domestic role.
 Simile “as if the King of Death” – masculine power. Capitalisation of this role, power to
destroy has wielded this absolute, divine, regal sense of dominion over the whole forest as
extended metaphor for their relationship, feelings and sex life. “Feast, stalking” – virility,
passion. Close link between sex and violence. Sex and violence. Fascination with the
macabre. V. Closely linked. Base pleasure are in food and sex; self-gratification.
 Grotesque images of death compared to romantic image of kissing. Idea of warped romantic
passionate idea. Juxtaposition of horror and beauty of life. Represented, ultimately by how
nature is a cycle of beauty and horror.
 Challenges view of gun, what killing could be. Whether we celebrate acts of violence or not?
Should we celebrate acts of violence such as this? Should we celebrate violence that unites a
couple, even though its quite sinister? How far will we accept a change to social
expectations?
 “Crocuses” – crocuses themselves beauty and fragile, but also quite poisonous. Expectation
vs. Boundary of society. To what extent can society accept certain behaviour? Where is it
beauty and macabre?