ipl-logo

Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

842 Words4 Pages

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

Show More
Related

How Does Naomi Shihab Nye Use Imagery In The Traveling Onion

398 Words | 2 Pages

Dickinson included in her poem, “I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity- “ in which she concludes her poem with the speaker leaving the reader to interpret what death really

Read More

Similarities Between Alan Seeger And Dickinson's Unpredictable Death

112 Words | 1 Pages

In conclution, Alan Seeger and Emily Dickinson, both explain that althrough there were diffrent viewpoints and lifesyles although death is inevitable and unpredictable, death is something to not be feared but calmly accepted and perhaps calmy anticipated. Death is usually viewed as doubtful and people usually never want to accept it but Seeger and Dickinson explain to us how unevitable death is. Both authors further explain that death must not be feared but calmly accepted. In summary, death is a natural occurance that wiil inevitably happen to every living organism on this earth which is why it’s imperitave to humans that death should not be feared becaause we just wait its

Read More

Comparing Dickinson And Whitman's Poetry

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.

Read More

American Romanticism: Emily Dickinson And Walt Whitman

1214 Words | 5 Pages

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

Read More

How Did Emily Dickinson's Death Influence Her Poetry

240 Words | 1 Pages

Emily Dickinson's obsession on death in her poems has interested individuals for over a century. Her utilization of dark interest were one of a kind in mid-nineteenth century poems, particularly for a lady. The subject of these poems went from simply about death or the procedures paving the way to it, to Emily really lying all alone deathbed. For the rest of her life, she encountered broad individual battles, incorporating her own fight with long haul ailment, and the demise of numerous friends and family. This paper will talk about how Emily Dickinson's life influenced her poetry and as well offer one of her most well known death poems.

Read More

Because I Could Not Stop For Death Essay

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.

Read More

Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

1000 Words | 4 Pages

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).

Read More

Emily Dickinson's Poems: Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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

Read More

I Died For Beauty Essay

356 Words | 2 Pages

Death is not only an end to one’s life, but a new beginning to their afterlife. The new start in the afterlife shows that everyone has a chance to share their dreams with others. “X. I Died for Beauty” by Emily Dickinson, represents not only how one dies for what they believe in, but the courage to strive for goals and how the secrets they have, die with them. Unfulfilled goals don’t just end after one is deceased, but lives on to share with others in the afterlife, even when the goal is misrepresented. Relinquishing hope towards a “scarce” dream, “d[ying] for beauty”, others often “lain” the goal as something far from the “truth.”

Read More

Symbolism In Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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.

Read More

The Lesson By Maya Angelou Essay

477 Words | 2 Pages

The poem is about the hardships and the bitter sweet feelings of dealing with life and death. The poem begins with a hyperbole saying “I keep on dying again” meaning that she has already died, and has actually died more than once and that this will continue to happen. The speaker of the poem also uses imagery and a simile in the line “Veins collapse, opening like the small fists of sleeping children”. The speakers tone at the beginning of the poem is very gloomy and discouraging.

Read More

What Is Emily Dickinson's View Of Death

932 Words | 4 Pages

Death is the inevitable conclusion to life. However, death lays on two different spectrums; a weak antagonist and a charming suitor. These two ideas are presented in the poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne. They both personify death to explain the idea of death and the wonder of eternal life. Even though both personify death, they have different perspectives of death.

Read More

Mortality And Death Argumentative Analysis

960 Words | 4 Pages

The carriage the duo are riding in come to a stop in front of a house where the roof was scarcely visible, something a reader can assume to be a resting place such as heaven. The persona then goes on to say that the time he or she had had felt “shorter than (a) day” and that the “...horses’ heads...were toward eternity” (Dickinson 1). In other words, the persona has become aware of the shortness of life and how he or she was headed towards death regardless which path he or she taken in life. This can then be applied to all other humans and help to aid in the understanding that the one thing a person can be sure of in life is death. Human experiences, on the hand, is often based on spontaneous chance and doesn’t have the same grounding in reality as death does.

Read More

Mid-Term Break By Seamus Heaney: Poem Analysis

1049 Words | 5 Pages

Personification is a signature device used in the poem, and this can be seen from the capitalized ‘Death’ and the capitalized ‘Immortality’. Death is personified as a civil suitor in the poem, and the poet’s vision on death and her diction with the title are comprehensible since death is inevitable, and will always be waiting for the victim. Symbolism is also used in the poem. We passed the school, where children stove at recess - in the ring – we passed the fields of gazing grain – we passed the setting sun.’ This stanza neatly symbolizes the three main stages of life: childhood, adulthood, and age.

Read More

Analysis Of Emily Dickinson's Attitude Towards Death

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

Read More

More about Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Related Topics

Open Document