A minor role

• Themes


  • Intoxication of power
  • Gender
  • Conflict
• "you lay it on the kitchen table, stretched out like something dead itself."

  • The gun has already acquired an entity of its own. “You lay it on the kitchen table,/ stretched out” implies intrusiveness, and “stretched out” is arrogant-sounding, suggesting masculine connotations, where the woman is expected to prepare the food and do housework while the .man rests.
  • The simile ‘like something dead’ anticipates the dead animals that will be brought home, as described later in the poem.
• "There's a spring in your step; your eyes gleam like when sex was fresh"


  • There is an implication that the speaker shares in the delight of hunting. The ‘spring in your step’, ‘gleam’ in the eyes and reference to sex are all disturbing. Here violence and sex are conflated. Hunting is clearly sexually arousing for both parties.
  • This stanza has a marked rhythm, enhanced by pairs of related words; ‘run and flown’, and the alliterative ‘fur and feathers’; a device known as hendiadys. The word ‘gleam’ has a sensuous, elongated vowel sound that enhances the erotic undertones.
• "A gun brings a house alive"

  • This echoes the opening two lines. The speaker shares the excitement of the gun. The statement is oxymoronic; a gun causes death, yet it brings this household ‘alive’.
• Structure


  • The layout of the stanzas in this poem is notable, varying between a typical six to seven line length, all the way to single lines that are extremely attention-grabbing. The single line, “A gun brings a house alive.” is inserted into the poem before the last stanza, which is an effective placement because it helps to ensure that a reader questions the use of guns, and the violent descriptions which are being shared.