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Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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Does the speaker in “Because I could not stop for the death” fear death? Death is a frequent theme of numerous literary works that explore the feelings of anger and sadness that death brings. However, “Because I could not stop for death”, a lyric poem written by Emily Dickinson in 1890, illustrates a woman’s last journey to the grave and sees death in a different way. The speaker of this poem has a positive and favorable view of death. She calmly accepts her death by getting into the carriage and heading to her grave. She does not question of avoid following the personified death even though she does recognize that it may be her last moment in her life. By doing so, she clearly suggests the message that death is not something to be feared. …show more content…

The mention of immortality in the first stanza reflects her desire to quit the physical life in reality and start a new eternal spiritual life. The speaker sees death as another chance to refresh her life, therefore persuades the readers to embrace the end of physical life. The journey described in the third stanza is an allegory of human life from the childhood represented by the school and children, passing the middle age represented by the fields of grazing grain to the old age, the setting sun. However, in the end, it is not depicted what actually happened to her after she died and not even her success of immortality is stated. Throughout the final lines, “I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/ Were toward Eternity-” the speaker only guesses that the horses that led the carriage are heading toward eternity. Dickinson purposely left the ending of the poetry abstract and unclear to widen and develop the readers’ own believes and definitions of afterlife. The speaker’s story will depend on each of the readers with various imaginations, because everyone has different perspectives on afterlife, from a religious heaven or a paradise to reincarnation. Such an open end with the word “eternity” indicates the speaker’s wish that everyone’s lives will end with an eternity where death will be a

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