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Emily Dickinson Alliteration

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“Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson is a poem from the civil war time period. Dickinson has a habit of capitalizing important words in her poems when she wants to emphasize them and although she uses musical devices, her poems don’t have any set rhyme. This poem is a lyrical poem and consists of six stanzas and twenty-four lines. The poem starts with the image of a personified death and immortality in the first stanza: “The Carriage held but just Ourselves—And Immortality.” (3-4). Painting a picture of Death inviting Dickinson onto the carriage which is also a metaphor of her life. She describes him as being civil, “For His Civility” (8), as he waits for her death. The poem shows Emily taking a ride through her life with …show more content…

In the third stanza, she uses the repetition to give the beginning of her lines emphasis: “We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain— We passed the Setting Sun” (11-12). Furthermore, “Gazing Grain” and “Setting Sun” are alliterations which give the lines a more lyrical tone. The two metaphors in poem are particularly interesting because they are direct contrasts of each other; the “Carriage” represents her life while the “Swelling of the Ground” represents her death. This isn’t the only time she gave two characteristics to one subject: “The Dews drew quivering and chill” (14). The “Dews drew” is an alliteration and is then personified with “quivering and chill”. Towards the end of the poem, she uses a hyperbole to exaggerate the length of her lifetime: “’tis Centuries—and yet Feels shorter than the Day” (21). The hyperbole resonates with the next line to get the reader thinking of the momentary existence of humans. Despite including death as the main theme, Dickinson’s poem has a calm and blissful tone. This is a good poem because of its general topic, making it very easy to relate to. The message that this poem conveys is that death is with you at all times and he is patient and will wait with you for the rest of your life. The last few lines of the poem makes the reader reflect on how brief their existence

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441 Words | 2 Pages

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.

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932 Words | 4 Pages

Whitman and Dickinson share the theme of death in their work, while Whitman decides to speak of death in a more realistic point of view, Dickinson speaks of the theme in a more conceptual one. In Whitman’s poems, he likes to have a more empathic view of individuals and their ways of living. For example, in Whitman’s “Song of Myself”, the poet talks about not just of himself, but all human beings, and of how mankind works into the world and the life of it. Even though the poem mostly talks about life and the happiness of it, Whitman describes also that life itself has its ending, and that is the theme of death. For Dickinson, she is the complete opposite of happiness.

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119 Words | 1 Pages

In Because I Could Not Stop for Death Dickinson uses alliteration repeatedly to describe her mortal life and immortal life. For example, in line 7 she says, “My labor and my leisure too”. This describes how she put away all the work and all the pleasure of her mortal life. Signifying how none of these mortal aspects matter anymore as death is taking her away. Another example, in line 15, “For only Gossamer, my Gown” Dickinson uses a very eerie form of alliteration as she describes being covered in cob webs, this gossamer is her gown for eternity.

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842 Words | 4 Pages

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

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1156 Words | 5 Pages

“Success is counted sweetest by those who never succeed.” This statement by Emily Dickinson expresses that you will never truly understand the meaning of success unless you have undergone failure. Emily Dickinson faced adversity throughout her fifty-five years of living as she experiences several losses. Because of this, the main theme in her poems is death as they are filled with constant bereavement however the themes of love, religion and nature are also present.

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1079 Words | 5 Pages

When writers add in seemingly random details such as capitalizations and dashes, one should pay attention. Emily Dickenson’s “There’s a certain Slant of light” is simply about light passing over the landscape, but no poem is only about what it seems. Dickenson uses caesura, juxtaposition, personification, and other literary devices to convey a dark, negative tone about the light throughout the poem.

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751 Words | 4 Pages

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.

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1257 Words | 6 Pages

If she wasn’t writing about death then she was writing about religion. She wanted to be able to express herself in a way that would not offend some people while including something she loved and her beliefs. 1840-1850 is known as Religious Revivalism or the Second Awakening. “This was a time when there was religious problems going around in the United States” (The Second Great Awakening). Dickinson wanted to find a way she could express her religion during this time.

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1214 Words | 5 Pages

When Dickinson was young she thought of death as a kind, peaceful gentleman. She elaborates on this idea in her poem “Because I could not Stop for Death”, “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me/ We slowly drove - He knew no haste,” Emily Dickinson uses the personification of Death in a way that bears resemblance to a classy, peaceful gentleman who is willing to slowly guide and patiently wait for a lady. Her wording also gives the connotation that she is young and in love with this gentle Death. This idea abruptly turns into hatred when she loses her parents.

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975 Words | 4 Pages

In the poem “Because I could not stop for death” by Emily Dickinson, death is described as a person, and the narrator is communicating her journey with death in the afterlife. During the journey the speaker describes death as a person to accompany her during this journey. Using symbolism to show three locations that are important part of our lives. The speaker also uses imagery to show why death isn 't’ so scary.

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1000 Words | 4 Pages

“Because I Could Not Stop For Death” by Emily Dickinson is a poem about death being personified in an odd and imaginative way. The poet has a personal encounter with Death, who is male and drives a horse-carriage. They go on a mysterious journey through time and from life to death to an afterlife. The poem begins with its first line being the title, but Emily Dickinson’s poems were written without a title and only numbered when published, after she died in 1886.

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843 Words | 4 Pages

They also remind us that in life, weather you are waiting for death or preparing for it, death will always come sooner or later. Both poems suggest that the only immortality we have is in the afterlife, in

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932 Words | 4 Pages

In Dickinson’s poem, death is not as terrifying as it is believed to be by most people. She sees death as a beautiful thing, a new chapter, rather than the last chapter. In contrast, Donne personifies death as a bully who turns out not to be so tough. Death is often thought of as dark and frightening, but Dickinson describes death as a journey, and not just a single event that concludes a life.

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926 Words | 4 Pages

In “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, Emily Dickinson uses imagery and symbols to establish the cycle of life and uses examples to establish the inevitability of death. This poem describes the speaker’s journey to the afterlife with death. Dickinson uses distinct images, such as a sunset, the horses’ heads, and the carriage ride to establish the cycle of life after death. Dickinson artfully uses symbols such as a child, a field of grain, and a sunset to establish the cycle of life and its different stages. Dickinson utilizes the example of the busyness of the speaker and the death of the sun to establish the inevitability of death.

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938 Words | 4 Pages

Emily Dickinson lived during a time when many would become very well acquainted with death. As such it would become a specter that was feared as it could make an appearance at any time. So looking at Dickinson 's work it seems rather interesting that taken as a collection there seems to be the tale of one character that comes to view death in a multitude of different ways throughout their life. First is the feared figure that leaves them restless, then death comes as something numbing but leaves the living to celebrate the life of the one that has passed, life as a story that is completed and finished upon death, and finally coming to see death as kind figure that takes one to a new home. this finally view is what paints death as something that is not to be feared but rather as something natural, it is the next

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