Emily Dickinson is famous for writing about death time and time again. Her poem, 479 or “Because I could not stop for Death”, is no exception. The speaker within this poem is communicating with us from beyond the grave. They begin to describe their journey with death, who is personified or given human characteristics, in the first stanza by saying “Because I could not stop for Death-/He kindly stopped for me.” Dickinson starts this poem with the word “because”. This immediately assumes that the speaker is giving an explanation to an argument on death and why she could not stop. The speaker has no time for death as they are too busy living the life that they already have so Death, being the “kind” individual that he is, waits for her. This makes the poem seem more alive and active, unlike others who take on a more observant position. The civility that he shows causes her to give up on the things that has made her so busy- “And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too”- and enjoy the carriage ride that he takes her on. It is implied, to the reader, that the carriage holds just the two of them because of the capitalization of “Ourselves”, but this is quickly diminished in the fourth line by adding Immortality. Dickinson often will capitalize nouns to add emphasis to the term and to make the reader pay more attention to that specific word. In the second stanza, first line, we see a change in the use of pronouns, “We slowly drove-He knew no haste.” The subtle switch from
In this poem, Dickinson uses powerful diction to describe the journey from life to death. She personifies death as a man carrying her to the other side. Along the journey, the narrator sees the locations of significant moments that occurred in her life. A famous line in the poem is “Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me” (Dickinson 1-2).
Dickinson uses the character of Death as an extended metaphor. Dickenson describes Death as a gentlemen suitor who has picked her up for a ride in a carriage, further details reveal that the two are by themselves. However, Dickenson uses personification again to surprise us in the next line by adding another passenger – Immortality. She shares the carriage with Death and Immortality, two opposites. This lets the reader realize that although Death is there to take the corporeal self, Immortality is there for her spirit, the speaker does not think of death as the end rather a step to eternal
The poems “Because I could not stop for Death” and “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” by Emily Dickinson both describe death and a journey one takes to get there. In “Because I could not stop for Death” the speaker tells of someones journey of death that did not see it coming and had no time to slow down to notice it. While in the poem “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” the speaker describes ones journey to death that aware it is coming, someone who is prepared and waiting for it to happen. Death can arrive in many different forms, it is different for everyone and nobody knows or can predict accurately when or how it will come no matter how prepared or not prepared someone is.
Death is an unknown, no one has ever died and come back to tell the tale, instead people have to imagine and come up with what they think it will be like. The poets, Emily Dickinson and William Cullen Bryant, both had very different perspectives when it came to writing about death. In Bryant’s “Thanatopsis”, the speaker emphasizes that one joins nature and should not be afraid because they will be with everyone else as equals when they die. This is different from Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for Death”, where the speaker takes a ride in a carriage with death for eternity. Whether or not these authors believed that their poems were actual representations of what happens when one dies, the poems both describe unique ideas of what
Emily Dickinson’s Poem 365 begins the first stanza with acknowledging that a “He” exists in silence and hiding. This He can be a possible perception God, as Dickinson him as being silent and in hiding, but still existing. The poem mentions that He has a rare life, a possible inference that God is the only thing in existence of that sort of being. All of these descriptions of the He in the first stanza infer that God is the thing she is contemplating here.
In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” Dickinson uses dashes at the end of lines to signal rests, exemplified as how she interposes dashes throughout the first stanza, “because I could not stop for death - he kindly stopped for me - the carriage
Emily Dickinson used a technique in which she gradually lead the reader to the meanings in the end of each verse. But each line in this poem plays an important role to metaphorically complete the messages as well as to literally complete the poem. All in all, the verses, are very different from each other. Paradoxically however, they are very similar and they contain the same message. The destructiveness of human
In the opening stanza the speaker states being too busy for death. Thus, death “kindly” takes the time to stop for her since she has no time to do it for herself. Death stops to pick up the speaker and take her on a ride in his horse-drawn carriage in the form of a suitor along with “immorality” being their chaperon. This “civility” that Death exhibits leads the speaker on giving up what made her busy as Dickinson states “And I had put away / My labor and my leisure too (6-7).
Throughout the poem, Dickinson describes Death as a male that keeps coming for her while she is trying to escape him. In the first two lines, she uses personification, giving Death human characteristics. “Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me,” emphasizing death as a male and how he has stopped for her at this point. In lines 9-12, Dickinson uses imagery to create a picture for the reader to emphasize what she and Death are witnessing as they are passing through the area. Imagery is used throughout the poem to illustrate what she is seeing such as children at recess and passing the Fields of Gazing Grain and watching the Sun Set as they take a walk.
The first stanza of this particular Dickinson poem helps to set the on going theme for the rest of the poem. The theme of course for this particular poem is about the sea and early morning walk that Dickinson had with her dog. The opening stanza of the poem reads, “I started Early- Took my Dog -/And visited the Sea -/The Mermaids in the Basement / Came out to look at me” (I. 1-4). From this passage the audience can presume that Dickinson has taken her pet dog for a walk on the beach in the early morning hours, and that on the walk she may have encountered beautiful sea creatures that looked up at her.
However, the reason this scene is happening is because we have such a fear of death that most of us refuse to stop for it. However, as the courteous gentleman that death is kindly stops for the speaker in the poem to show that death isn’t so bad. Another example is “And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility” (569).
Emily Dickinson had multiple views on death. At first she was in love with the peaceful, gentle side of death, but that all changed when she lost her everything, her parents to death. The significance is that Romanticism is a diverse thing and it can be shaped a formed to the writers likings, but it will only have an effect if the reader interprets the poem in the same
But at the thought of death, a poem by Emily Dickinson comes to mind, and poses the thought, what if death isn't quite as ominous and foreboding as we believe it to be. Furthermore the poet, Emily Dickinson uses gentle language to describe death in Because I Could Not Stop For Death, an instance being “The Carriage held but just Ourselves”. This lighthearted language suggests a kinder idea of Death, one that drives a carriage instead of a hearse. Employing death as the commentator for this book makes sense, because death had its hands full during the holocaust, claiming over 11 million lives. And seeing this through the eyes of something who has seen it to the full extent provides an enlightening perspective.
In the carriage, she states she, “was accompanied by Immortality as well as Death” (Robert). That statement, alone, says that Dickinson considers Death and Immortality to be, “fellow travelers” (Robert). The symbols used here are about a “man” who is not an actual man, but
Dickinson uses the image of a sunset, the horses’ heads, and the carriage ride to establish