Emily Dickinson 's Poem, Because I Could Not Stop For 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 “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, Emily Dickins illustrates the death of the narrator and the process in which the death occurred. In the poem, the narrator is greeted by Death who seems to be civil and kind. At first, the narrator rather dismissed Death, however, due to the nature of Death, she had decided to ride along with him in a carriage. The narrator accepted the company of Death and they “slowly drove, [as] he knew no haste, and I had put away my labor, and my leisure too, for his civility” (Source A). Death was driving the narrator to her next destination in life and the narrator acknowledged this without any worry. At the end of life, death is a natural process to undergo and humans can’t escape it. In this section of the poem,

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

Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson processes the life leading up to death and eternal life. The speaker is telling the poem many years after death and in eternal life. She explains the journey to immortality, while also facing the problem of sacrifice and willingness to earn it. The poem is succulent in alliteration, imagery, repetition, personification and rhyme. A notable shift in almost all of the poems direction occurs as well. By doing so, Dickinson, a poet in the American Romantics era, sets forward an idea that immortality will appear in the afterlife of an individual who believes so.

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.”

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

“Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, a poem by Emily Dickinson, contains an extended metaphor that gives the poem two different meanings that complement each other. This extended metaphor is the one that identifies marriage with Death. In the poem, Death is personified as a man who takes a woman on a carriage ride. The woman abandons everything she knows and watches life pass by until she arrives at an old house that would be her grave, where she would rest for eternity, aware of her loneliness and the passing of time.

Death, along with the afterlife, puzzles mankind because no one has experienced the process of dying and lived to tell the story. Some believe death marks the end of one’s journey through life, while others believe in an afterlife or reincarnation. Emily Dickinson’s poem, “[Because I could not stop for Death—],” records one of many ways in which people view death. Dickinson uses personifications and metaphors in order to show that the process of death is not something to be feared. By personifying death, readers are able to understand the concept and process of death.

In Emily Dickinson’s poem, in line 1, 2 "Because I couldn’t stop for death –He kindly stopped for me" the word “death” delivers a positive mood as the speaker seems respect and awe death. Moreover, death is portrayed as a phenomenon that is beyond ‎human’s control. Death has its own control; it is something that human cannot decide themselves but only death can do stop for human, invite them into its carriage, not vice versa. In ‎addition, the word “kindly” in the line presents calmness to the readers as death is not something that human should scare off. Besides, the word "slowly" and the phrase "no haste" in

Anna Falci Mr. Brehm Literature 7 11 October 2017 Life after Death and False Illusions The poem “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” by Emily Dickinson explains the poet's theory of afterlife and the false illusions of death. Dickinson's theory of afterlife can be shown in her poem by, “Because I could not stop for Death,/ He kindly stopped for me. (1-2)” In simpler words, this means Dickinson could not have stopped living for Death, but he stopped for her.

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.

Emily Dickinson (1830-1836) is one of the greatest poets in American literature. Although she spent most of her life working in relative anonymity, her status rose sharply following her death and the subsequent publishing of much of her surviving work. Two of Dickinson’s most well-known poems are “Because I could not stop for Death—" and “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died”. I say known as because Dickinson never actually gave her poems proper titles. For this reason, the first lines of her poems have come to be used as a distinguishing reference. This paper will briefly analyze both poems in an attempt to both compare and measure their relative literary merits.

When the speaker states, “Because I could not stop for Death—/He kindly stopped for me—,” she implies that most people do not stop to think about their death. People go on with their busy lives and do not talk or think about death because they are afraid of it. So Death must stop and “kindly” ask people into his carriage. After she went into his carriage, Dickinson goes on to portray what the speaker sees as she is dying. Contrary to the speaker’s busy and fast life, line five