Outlook On Death

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

Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both

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.

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

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

In addition to these three stages, the final stage of eternity was symbolized in the last two lines of the poem, the “Horses Heads” (23), leading “towards Eternity” (24). Dickinson fathomed the incomprehensible progression of life by unraveling its complexity with figurative symbols. Emily Dickinson dresses the scene such that mental pictures of sight, feeling, and sound come to life. The imagery begins the moment Dickinson invites Her reader into the “Carriage.” Death “slowly” takes the readers on a sight seeing trip where they see the stages of life. The first site “We” passed was the “School, where Children strove” (9). Because it deals with an important symbol, —the “Ring”—this first scene is perhaps the most important. One author noted that “the children, at recess, do not play (as one would expect them to) but strive” (Monteiro 20).

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

One of Emily Dickinson’s most famous poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death, consists of Emily summarizing her journey through life, from the afterlife. The poem embraces death and its eternity. She begins by personifying death as a person who takes her on ‘date’ in which her life is calmly retold.

Emily Dickinson wrote two poems “I heard a buzz when- I died” and “Because I could not stop for death”. In these two poems, Emily Dickinson, describes two very different death experiences. While doing so Dickinson describes what she believes death to be. The poem “I Heard a buzz when I died,” takes a rough route to death with an even rougher shock. The other poem “Because I could not stop for death,” takes a gentler route to death with a not so gentle shock. However out of these poems, “I heard a buzz - when I died, “receives the worst shock. This character faces the brutal shock of death without any closure.

Emily Dickinson wrote a poem called “Because I could not stop for Death.” This poem is about death, how you should not be afraid of it. This poem is also about a woman accompanied by immortality, headed towards her final destination, which is eternity. She faces the fact that she does not have any control of death and just want it to take its course.

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.

Emily Dickinson a modern romantic writer, whose poems considered imaginative and natural, but also dark as she uses death as the main theme many times in her writings. She made the death look natural and painless since she wanted the reader to look for what after death and not be stuck in that single moment. In her poems imagination play a big role as it sets the ground for everything to unfold in a magical way. The speakers in Dickinson’s poetry, are sharp-sighted observers who see the inescapable limitations of their societies as well as their imagined and imaginable escapes. To make the abstract tangible, to define meaning without confining it, to inhabit a house that never became a prison, Dickinson created in her writing a distinctively elliptical language for expressing what was possible but not yet realized. She turned increasingly to this style that came to define her writing. The poems are rich in aphorism and dense