What is it like to die? Emily Dickinson describes it as a simple carriage ride through the country with a gentleman. In the poem, “Because I could not stop for Death” written by Emily Dickinson and published posthumously in 1890, the author writes the poem in first person as a message from beyond the grave. The poem has clear themes and ideas that are still at the forefront of the wonderings of most philosophers, such as what happens after death. Emily Dickinson’s well-known writing style is unique because she does not use correct punctuation; instead, she uses hyphens in nearly every line. She also employs simple but meaningful words to convey the theme to her readers. Literary devices such as metaphors, similes, and imagery are used in her poem to make it more vivid. Emily Dickinson’s poem has unique and distinct themes, literary devices, and format that make it quite interesting to read. The poem “Because I could not stop for Death” has two themes that contradict each other perfectly. The themes of this poem include both mortality and immortality. For instance, she could not stop for death, so he stopped for her. This symbolizes most humans’ …show more content…
She wrote the poem in a lyrical format with four lines per stanza; the meter is purely iambic and has a rhyme scheme of ABAB. Emily Dickinson uses a distinct form of punctuation; she uses hyphens instead of colons to separate ideas and organize her thoughts. She alone uses this form of punctuation. For instance, the dashes could mean a different voice speaking or it could simply symbolize an interruption or insertion of a different thought. She also uses dashes to separate prepositional and participial phrases from the rest of the sentence, perhaps to emphasize position or description. Because of her use of dashes, it is up to the reader to attempt to decode the meaning of certain