Essay about Because I could not stop for Death, by Emily Dickinson

First, Emily Dickinson’s poetry1 continuously rejected society’s perception of death. As death approaches, the one entering eternity and those nearby are often scared

Dickinson starts the first stanza of the poem with, “Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me” (807). Clearly she was not ready to go, death simply took her by surprise and brought her busy life to a halt. This could be seen as a beautiful way to take on death because death is usually said in such a morbid tone and the fact she associated “kindly” with death makes it beautiful. The second line says, “The Carriage held but just Ourselves – and Immortality” (Dickinson 807). The author emphasizes Carriage, Ourselves, and Immortality. Dickinson seems to be talking about her own death chariot and by immortality, she believes her death is not the end, but rather as a step to eternal life.

The ensuing line states, “He kindly stopped for me” (Line 2). From this, the reader could possibly deduce that the narrator was glad to see death. Dickinson was known throughout her life to have been oddly fascinated with death and immortality, so it’s not out of the question to assume that this fascination was reflected in the narrator’s personality and was why death was welcomed. However, a more likely conclusion is that Dickinson was merely being ironic. Death is ominous as it is a leap into the unknown; we simply cannot fathom the eternity of afterlife. Taking us without consent from our lives (which we already have no power over), and thrusting us into an incomprehensible eternity is not exactly a kind act to commit, thus irony was used in this case. This further strengthens the idea that our lives are out of our control because with or without consent, death will choose to take a life whenever he pleases.

While on their way, they passed by a school belonging to children during break time as well as fields of ripened grain. The narrator further remarks that they even passed by the setting sun in other words, it passed them, and that their pace was so slow. Upon the fall of evening, a coolness feeling had arose, an instance that caught the speaker unaware as pertaining clothing. Moreover, they came near a cemetery, a place where the narrator has spent her time for centuries. Prior to her Death, time has passed by into centuries for the narrator, but surprisingly, it appears to be shorter as compared to her final day of living when she first thought that her journey was leading to Eternity.

In “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson personifies something I never thought could be personified: death. In the poem, death is a “he” who is on a carriage ride with the narrator to the narrator's death. In lines one and two, Dickinson writes, “Because I could not stop for Death-- He kindly waited for me.” This is personification because death cannot literally stop to wait for someone. Here, death is not associated with its usual connotations such as fear, but with peace and kindness, which is ironic. In line three, the poem reads, “The Carriage held but just Ourselves-- And Immortality.” In this line, immortality is also included in the carriage ride, contrasting death. This is personification because immortality

Dickinson gives Death many characteristics that help to shape our image of him. The line "He kindly stopped for me" in the first stanza, immediately gives a male gender (2). This male image gives the reader the traditional idea of the gentleman caller. This line also reveals a kind quality of death. The kind quality is important throughout this poem because it allows the speaker to

Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” is a remarkable masterpiece that exercises thought between the known and the unknown. Critics call Emily Dickinson’s poem a masterpiece with strange “haunting power.”

This poem is written in ballad form which is odd because one would think of a ballad and think a love story or an author gushing on about nature not an allegory about personified Death. Dickinson both unites and contrasts love/courtship with death, experimenting with both reader’s expectations and the poetic convention dictating specific poem form. This is why Dickinson is widely hailed because of her unconventional writing methods.

The poem was written about the speaker's father, who at the time had not passed yet. He was pleading with his father to "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" (Line 3), but that if he had to that it was not something to be feared. It shows the speakers journey with accepting the inevitability of his father's death even before he was gone. In Dickinson's poem the speaker shows no fight against death and easily gives in to this "Carriage [ride that] held just but ourselves – And Immortality" (3&4). The speaker shows that death is just the start of her journey by saying that death is not the end of her existence.The speaker had been dead for centuries " - and yet/ Feels shorter than the Day" (20&21) she died. The speaker was so accepting of this journey because she did not see death as the end but, as the beginning of a new life. Near the end she no longer talks about the carriage symbolizing the end of her journey, and her being at her final resting spot (Eternity). Both show that death is a journey that we all eventually have to accept whether you are the living, someone dying, or if you are already dead as it is our

Figuratively, in stanza three, the poem symbolizes the three stages of life: childhood represented by “Children strove” (l. 9), youth represented by “the Fields of Gazing Grains” (l. 11) and the end of the life represented by “the Setting Sun” (l. 12). On the way of her journey, the speaker views children struggling to win in the race in School. She also sees cereal grasses collectively in the field, and at last the speaker perceives with her eyes that the sun is setting on the way of her journey. This stanza gives us a clue of her passing by this world; however the speaker is not able to figure out that she is dead. She simply thinks the sun is setting on a regular basis.

“Because I could not stop for Death-” is the more famous of Dickinson’s works. The poem is her attempt to visualize the process of actually being dead. As a narrative, the unknown Speaker of the poem describes how the literalized manifestation known as Death “kindly stopped of me-”. Death picks the Speaker up in a carriage and they ride away together – “The Carriage held but just Ourselves — And Immortality.” In this way, Death has been compared to both a suitor and a seducer for the speaker. After all, the Speaker did not actually choose to die and was not even contemplating the end of life. Rather, Death chose the Speaker. The suiter/seducer interpretation provides a double-meaning wherein can be viewed as both the natural progression of life and also the destructive violation of it. Immortality is the third person

Two of Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” and “Because I could not stop for Death” are both written about life’s stopping point, death. Although the poems are written by the same poet, both poems view death in a different manner. Between the two poems, one views death as having an everlasting life while the other anticipates everlasting life, only to realize it does not exist. While both poems are about death, both poems also illustrate that the outcome of death is a mysterious experience that can only be speculated upon with the anticipation of everlasting life.

Throughout this poem, the symbol of death is used to describe marriage to suggest that women in the Victorian era surrendered their liveliest features when they committed to their husbands. Since Dickinson was self-centered and reserved, she disengaged with her surrounding environment, which is likely what led her to living a life free of marriage and motherhood. To express her love for individuality and opposition of commitment and conformity, Dickinson rejected marriage and viewed it as the end of a woman’s

When thinking about the words marriage and death, it is common to believe that the meanings of them are far from being similar to one another. Although, there is one very common important factor that both marriage and death share, that being eternity. Death is seen as eternal rest, whereas marriage is seen as eternal love. In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death,” death is being illustrated through eternal marriage.

In the poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” Emily Dickinson portrays death as a polite gentleman who ushers people into the afterlife. The poem’s opening lines reveal death to be the driver of a carriage who stopped for the narrator of the poem. The narrator and death travel alone passing by