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Poem Analysis: Because I Could Not Stop Death

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Name: Mark Vicars
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Essay 2

Analysis Because I could not stop Death
“Because I could not stop Death” by Emily Dickinson talks about the day when death came calling her. In this poem the narrator is dead although it is clearly depicted in the last stanza and the reader cannot realize it form the first stanza. The narrator is consequently a spirit recalling the date of death and is not scared about its manifestation. The narrator still remembers the incidents of the death, how she got chilly and the feeling she got when she looked at those horse heads. This poem is among the many poems written by Emily Dickinson but never published and since they had not titles, they were published by the first name of the poem.
The carriage is a metaphor which illustrates the final passage to death and shows more symbolism by holding immortality which is personification in both cases of death and immortality. It is therefore shows that the carriage is a special passage from life to after life through death. Dickinson further illustrates the idea of sunset and how it gets cold and dark which symbolizes death (Stanza 1, line 3-5). The end of life on earth is also illustrated through the commencement of the conversation between the narrator and death. …show more content…

The narrator goes around the place and settles in the “house” which is the grave in this case although it is not illustrated in the poem. The narrator had been settling here for a long time and at this instance death was courteous. In the last stanza, the setting of the poem changes when the reader realizes that the occurrence was after death which means that the setting was different from the already explained in the first three

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