Death Is Not Stop For Death By Emily Dickinson

Although Dickinson does not mention heaven or hell in the poem, her point of view seems as if she is satisfied with her final resting place. The theme of the poem being that death is natural and unstoppable for everybody also gives comfort that it is not the end of a soul’s journey. The reader can recognize the poem's

In Patricia Engle’s review of Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, Engle argues that Dickinson’s poem employs Death as a lover who takes whomever is reading the poem to “heaven”, if you will. She also posits the idea that our eventual death is just a state of mind and we do not all follow the same path to reach Death. The poem, at its core, is about the visceral fear of Death and not wanting to die. I disagree with Engle’s assessment. Engle’s take on Dickinson’s poem is an inaccurate one because it explains that Dickinson does not seem to be afraid of death, that Dickinson is very spiritually aware and even accepting of her eventual fate, and that Dickinson, or the speaker of the poem, has accepted death so he has “stopped” for her.

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.

"Because I could not stop for Death" is one of the most puzzling poems Emily Dickinson wrote. “Scholars who stress these subversive qualities note that this poet appropriated conventional language, images, and themes and twisted them, disrupting their usual meaning.” (Dunlap, 2) In this poem, she describes death in hindsight. She commentates the experience play by play, chronicling her actions and vision from the time he arrived to pick her up in his carriage to her final resting place. In the poem, the impression of death is not portrayed as scary or daunting, but rather more as tranquil and peaceful. In the poem, death took on the image of a person. Through personification, he was portrayed more like a male suitor picking up his companion for a date. Dickinson guided us to believe that the speaker in the poem is talking and describing her journey with death to us from beyond the grave. She leads us to believe that the speaker is ghost-like or a spirit who has accepted her death and content with her boundless eternity. It is not surprising that “Because I could not stop for Death” incites so much controversy in that it presents complex and multi-dimensional concepts of both life and death, both of which are too mysterious to be fully expressed. In “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson does personify both death and Immortality as people, and presents the process of dying as eternal life. However in a bizarre twist, she also personifies life. She brings

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.

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.

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 is symbolic of her looking at death as a new beginning as opposed to a sad ending. There is a feeling of disappointment as she thinks that she is going towards eternity but she just ends up viewing the “House that Seemed a Swelling of the Ground” and then centuries later, reflects upon her journey towards and eternity she didn’t witness. To Dickinson death was not something to be afraid of but to rather embrace and accept because it was inevitable, yet as in her life ends up disappointed because death leads to nothingness.

     Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous authors in American History, and a good amount of that can be attributed to her uniqueness in writing. In Emily Dickinson's poem 'Because I could not stop for Death,' she characterizes her overarching theme of Death differently than it is usually described through the poetic devices of irony, imagery, symbolism, and word choice.

How would you feel, if one day death would call you? Would you be prepared if death arrives without warning? Emily Dickinson answers these questions in a short poem called “Because I could not stop for Death” by using capitalizations and figures of speech to show us how death can come from one moment to another without warning and without being prepared. In stanza 1, Dickinson uses many capitalizations such as the words: Death (line 1), Carriage (line 3), Ourselves (line 3) and Immortality (line 4).

In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death “ (448), the speaker of the poem is a woman who relates about a situation after her death. The speaker personifies death as a polite and considerate gentleman who takes her in a carriage for a romantic journey; however, at the end of this poem, she finishes her expedition realizing that she has died many years ago.

“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.

This poem clearly functions as an allegory. On a symbolic level, it was easy to grasp that this poem was a recollection of the speaker’s death. Dickinson describes this death so well it is almost as if she is writing about her own death. The main clue that this was a poem of death was that she got in a carriage with two guys whose names just happened to be Death and Immortality. Death symbolizes the passing away of the body, and Immortality represents the Christian belief that the body dies but the soul is immortal.