preview

Because I Could Not Stop For Death Personification

Decent Essays

How To Live Life
“Because I could not stop for Death,” by Emily Dickinson establishes the conflict between the way to live life and death. By using figures of speech such as personification and imagery, the speaker reminds us that life is short, so we must live it to the fullest because we never know when death will come to us.
The speaker uses personification, the attribution of human traits to nonhuman objects, to describe how death occurs in our lives. For example, the speaker states, “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me.” Giving death the characteristic of kindness and saying that it stopped for the speaker reveals how death is natural and will happen to everyone at some point, even though some might not expect …show more content…

By using imagery, we are able to understand and experience the details in the poem better. For example, the speaker states, “We passed the School where Children strove/ At Recess ‒ in the Ring.” This represents one’s youth. By depicting an image of children playing at recess, we are reminded of our childhood and how lively and carefree we were. The speaker then states, “We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain.” This paints a bright, glistening image of work and a great harvest, which symbolizes a thriving adulthood. By using these images, the speaker illustrates how we should live life and how, she, herself should have lived her life. The poem then makes a transition to the speaker’s experience of nearing death. The speaker states, “We passed the Setting Sun/ Or rather ‒ He passed us.” This helps us visualize an image of the day ending and the exhaustion we experience after a day’s work; this represents death. In addition, the speaker states, “The Dews drew quivering and chill,” which appeals to our sense of touch and gives off a feeling of coldness, loneliness, and emptiness. This shows how the blessing of life, which is represented by the dews, was wasted, thus resulting in desolation. This turn in the poem portrays how the speaker realizes that she is nearing death, and because of her misimpression that life is long and that death will take time before it happens, she

Get Access