Because I Could Not Stop For Death By Emily Dickinson

Death is an aspect of life that everyone becomes acquainted with sooner or later. The poem, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” by Emily Dickinson, is seen as a reflection of the passing of time in one 's life while living. No one knows when it is their time to die, and we live everyday as if tomorrow it promised. Dickinson is saying that since we as humans tend to live on the expectation for tomorrow, we don 't think about the end of our life or when it will be. That time will stand still when, and only when, life draws to a close, yet it will no longer matter.

Dickinson’s use of figurative language in “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” contributes to the meaning of the poem. With the use of personification, symbolism, and examples of vivid imagery, she composes a poem which is both unique and captivating. The title and first line of the poem, “Because I Could

The poem “Because I Could Not Stop Death” by Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poems since high school. I chose this poem due to the fact that that Emily Dickinson is one of my favorite poets, I personally love her dark, and mysterious poems. Indeed, people believed she was a little messed up in the head, but I believe she was just misunderstood. Additionally, this poem definitely brought back terrifying memories. When couple years ago, I got into a horrible car accident with a drunk driver, the accident was so traumatizing that I recall seeing my life flash before my eyes, it was like my soul was retracing my steps. In this poem, Emily is in a carriage riding around familiar places that she was been to since she was a young child, which to me it sounds like she was retracing her steps. It does represent a personal value due the fact that I believe life is short and one really never knows when it is there time to go.

First of all, based on both poems, the attitude of the poets is influenced by the diction of the poems as well as tone and mood.

The poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson is about one’s journey with death. How could one’s journey with death ever be a journey into the sunset. The poet's use of imagery, paradox, and caesura throughout the poem helps reveal the poem’s message. The poet uses imagery to describe certain scenes. The poem is describing someone’s journey with death and the stops along the way.

Along with the irregularities in meter, neither poem has a regular line length or rhyming pattern. Dickinson’s poem contains alternating tetrameters and trimeters, with the exception of the first line, which contains 7 syllables. The poem contains some irregular rhyme; ‘heard’ in line 5 rhymes with ‘bird’ in line 7, and ‘Sea’ in line 10 rhymes with ‘Me’ in line 12. Whitman’s poem contains even more irregular line lengths. The first 4 lines of each stanza vary from 12 to 15 syllables, but the last 4 lines of each stanza vary from 5 to 8 syllables. Unlike in Dickinson’s poem, the rhyming scheme carries throughout the whole poem, although the AABBCDED rhyme pattern contains a few cases of near rhyme.

In “Because I could not stop for Death” the woman seems to anticipate everlasting life, and has found it. The woman in the poem has been taken away by death. It almost seems as if the lady is reminiscing through her life as a child, an adult, and then she finds death. The death portion of her life is represented by “We passed the setting sun” (12). Reading through the poems leads one to believe the woman was very comfortable with death and all it had to offer. The woman in the poem is so comfortable in her new state that time trickles by, feeling “…shorter than the Day” (22). The poem, “Because I could not stop for Death” represents a woman that has found peace with her everlasting life. The mysterious experience of death is revealed in both poems.

The response will be free verse poem. It will explore ideas that have consistently appeared in the studied texts. The idea in terms of structure, was predominately derived from the poems that were explored in class especially 'It was not death, for I stood up' by Emily Dickinson. It will depict the progression of the protagonist's feelings and mental health.

The poem I Could Not Stop for Death exhibits typical Emily Dickinson style in it's dealing with the concepts of death and immortality. These concepts are archetypes as the concept of death and immortality are "recurring patterns that help create the structure of a literary work". The concept of impending death and immortality (whether it be obtained through death, or as a means to avoid it) can be found in literature throughout history in varying locations despite cultural and geographical differences. In Dickinson's poem

Death is personified as a chauffeur and then a friend. The trip was slow and leisurely. Death is natural and peaceful, it is not a thief of life, it is a guide towards death itself. One is never prepared to die, but one should not fear of death, it is a common treatment, when the time comes one have to accept his/her fate. "Because I could not stop for Death" presented a dark subject in a eccentric manner as it shows that the speaker presented no sign of fear - an amazing metaphysical treatment. The word "slowly", "century", "leisurely" and sun "passed" them, meaning the sun is moving faster than them. Everything that happened in the ride was the "past". The speaker is hinting an afterlife. not heaven or hell, like ghost wandering the "past"

Alternatively, Dickinson makes death into an extended metaphor throughout the poem. She personifies death so he resembles a gentleman. The first stanza sets the scene as if it were a suitor meeting a woman, with “Because I could not stop for Death -- / He kindly stopped for me” (Dickinson 1-2). While death is typically associated with a negative connotation, Dickinson portrays death in a better light, as almost polite. In line 17, when Death brings the speaker home, it marks the end of the journey, which is the speaker’s death. As shown in “Because I could not stop for Death,” Dickinson’s work is very symbolism and metaphor heavy. This device makes her poetry much more intriguing and ominous, especially in those that are about death, such as this one.

The poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” written by Emily Dickinson deals about death. Dickinson does not waste time showing about what this poem is. She lets the reader know from the beginning that it is going to be about death. The title itself seems really alive and active.

Life, death, and reincarnation are the recurring theme of the most notable poem “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” by Emily Dickinson. Throughout the poem, Dickinson traces her descent sanity into madness which has made the poem terrifying for both the speaker and the reader. At the beginning of the poem, Dickinson has expressed her feeling of grief and pain through the use of an extended metaphor, “felt a funeral in the brain” and in the rest of the poem, she lives a life, passes away, and reborn again into this world making choice between a world full of trouble, pain or a heaven that brings solitude and peace. Besides, Dickinson through the poem explains many experiences of her in words that cannot be described very easily, which is why in order to replicate the feeling of insanity, she used a wide variety of literary techniques that include symbolism, imagery, metaphor, simile, capitalization of words, use of dashes and different other structures.

Just from reading the title, “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson it could be easily identified that the subject of this poem is related to death with the theme being there is life after death. It imprints the idea into the reader's mind that the entity death is a brutal force which is ruthless and uncaring. On the other hand, Dickinson gives us an image of a different personified form of death being seen as a gentleman who is civilized, not frightening or even intimidating, leading the speaker's soul to the afterlife. The readers also receive an idea that the narrator of this poem is a female who is taken on a date with a romantic carriage ride. Allowing readers to see death is not all bad, but a gentle force who is guiding the souls of the deceased into a path of immortality.

The poem itself is divided up into five, ten- lined stanzas. The stanzas are organized by different rhyme schemes. In the beginning of the lines, all stanzas have abab as the first four lines. However, the first stanza follows a pattern of cdedce, which is revisited in stanza five. Following that, the second stanza last six lines are cdeced, and the third and fourth stanzas are cdecde.