Emily Dickinson Death Diction

Death is inevitable; it should not be feared but instead accepted, and this is the main idea and theme explored in Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death.” In the poem, Death is personified as a gentleman who “kindly stopped [stops] for me [her]” (Dickinson 2), “slowly drove [drives] … know[ing] no haste” (Dickinson 5), and with whom she stops at a “house that seemed [seems]/ A swelling of the ground” (Dickinson 17-18) or in other words, her grave. To begin the poem, the fact that Death is represented as “if he were a human being” (Evans 15) implies that it is humane. This contributes to the idea that death is not to fear. Later on, it can be concluded that this person has control over her as she describes how she “had put away / My [her] labor, and my [her] leisure too, / for his civility” (Dickinson 6-8), which implies that “everything that had once seemed so important and distracting now recedes in importance” (Evans 17), and how he “slowly drove [drives] … know[ing] no haste” (Dickinson 5), which gives “no clear sense of the underlying purpose of the journey or its ultimate destination” (Evans 16) and thus implies that only Death knows the path and destination of the journey. Both of these examples contribute to the fact that Death completely controls a person against its will and that it is inevitable. Finally when “we [they] paused before a house that seemed / A swelling of the ground” (Dickinson

    Figurative language plays a key role in the poem, as well. The best example is  The Morning after Death,  which sounds a lot like  mourning after death.  In fact,  mourning  could even replace  morning  and the poem would still make sense. Another example occurs in the second stanza, when Dickinson uses the words  sweeping  and  putting.   By using such cold, unfeeling words when describing matters of the heart, the author creates a numb, distant tone. She really means that after someone dies, one almost has to detach oneself from the feelings of love that once existed for the deceased.

“Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” written by Emily Dickinson was published in 1890, in her collection called Poems. Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, and passed away May 15, 1886. Four years after her death, several of her poems were published including, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” Emily Dickinson had become ill in the 1880s, and lost many friends and family members during this time, causing her to gain a higher blood pressure, which would then kill her in 1886. This turn in events may have encouraged Dickinson to write this poem about death. Dickinson's death created opportunities for many of her other poems that were not yet published, to be seen by others all around the world.

The subject of death, including her own was a very prevalent theme in Emily Dickinson’s poems and letters. Some may find her preoccupation with death morbid, but this was not unusual for her time period. The mindset during Ms. Dickinson’s time was that of being prepared to die, in the 19th century people died of illness and accidents at an alarming rate, not to mention the Civil War had a high number of casualties, she also lived 15 years of her youth next to a cemetery. Dickinson’s view on death was never one of something to be feared she almost romanized death, in her poem “Because I Could not Stop for Death”, she actually personifies death while narrating from beyond the grave. In the first stanza she states “I could not stop for

Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1800 poems in her lifetime, most of these poems dealing with the subject of death. Because I could not stop for death can be referred to as one of her most well known poems that were written. In this poem Dickinson uses literary devices to convey death. The most evident of these literary devices used are personification, metaphor and alliteration.

Emily Dickinson's Feelings About Death Revealed in Her Poem, Because I could not stop for Death

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.”

Through Dickinson’s use of vivid images such as when she writes “We passed the School, where Children strove / At Recess – in the Ring – “ (9-10) the reader can clearly picture the children frolicking in a schoolyard. She then writes that “ We passed the Fields of Gazing Grains -- / We passed the Setting Sun – “ (11-12) and the reader understands that she is seeing the stages of her life from childhood, into adulthood, and then end of her life. She also uses the word passed four times in two stanzas to show the progression of her life and also the momentum of her final

     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.

The first line of stanza four “Or rather-- He passed Us—“ (l. 13) demonstrates that the speaker is uncertain about her existence in the world. Now she feels that her life symbolized by the sun is passing by. She becomes chilled by the “dews” (l. 14). Lines three and four in this stanza illustrate the reason for her coldness. The speaker is attired in a light “Gown” (l. 15) and cape or “Tippet” made of “Tulle” (l. 16), which is a kind of thin, transparent, open meterial. When people die,

Secondly, the third quatrain tells us that Dickinson was imagining separating from her life current life and moving into the afterlife away her “Keepsakes.” After this was concluded the “Fly”

The poem is written in Dickinson’s usual obscure style, allowing different interpretations and creating various themes. Death and suffering were obvious themes that Dickinson introduced through the text. The theme of death is evident through Dickinson’s description of the nerves: “The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs–” (After 2). Dickinson compares nerves to tombs, and tombs are associated with graves or death. Dickinson provide more textual evidence that presents the idea of death is the ending of the poem: “First – Chill – then Stupor – then the letting go –” (After 13).

She states that death came gently to the narrator to escort her. When she describes death’s gentleness she explains that it never rode the hoarse carriage hastily. Then she describes about the journey that death and the narrator took. She expresses the joy and pleasure that the narrator felt during the trip with death as if she dated with a gentleman. She also describes the beautiful scenery of children in the school that the narrator saw on the road with death.

The first stanza begins with “I felt a funeral, in my brain” this symbolizes the initial steps in Dickinson’s downward free fall. The fact that she actually “felt” a funeral and not experienced something “like” a funeral symbolizes that she actually believes that this is happening. The use of an alteration in the opening sentence (“felt a funeral”) is an extremely captivating technique to grasp the reader’s attention. The treading and treading of the mourners may represent