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Personification In Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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Death is an unavoidable aspect of existence as humans. With life comes death no matter what. It is something that is never easy: having those one loves torn from them for seemingly no reason. Or having one’s own life dreams and ambitions put to a screeching halt, sometimes without warning. In Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death—”, she uses the personification of death itself and all the things around the character to show that death is not something to be feared but welcomed as the next step in existence. Emily Dickinson was born in Massachusetts to a very religious and Puritan family. She had a formal education and excelled. During her time in college, her faith was assessed, and she was determined to be without hope in …show more content…

The first introduction of death is “Because I could not stop for Death—/He kindly stopped for me—” (1-2), which is both the title of the poem and the first line. There, the word death is capitalized, serving as the name of the person the speaker meets. She describes death as a kind person who took it into his hands to wait for the speaker to be ready to depart. She uses plenty of language with positive connotations to describe death later as well. While Death slowly and leisurely drives the carriage during the speaker's final trip through her life, she says “I had put away/My labor and my leisure too,/For His Civility” (6-8). Not only does she describe his civility and homeliness, but Dickinson capitalizes the word “His”. Even when referring to people regularly, pronouns are not capitalized; however, there is a famous exception to this: The Bible. During such a religious period in time, most people looked to God for guidance. He was seen as the next step in life, but people failed to accept the process of making it to God. People could accept the fact that meeting God meant eternal existence and was a beautiful thing. Dickinson is not only personifying death but comparing it to God, in the way that they both bring people to the next step of life in a warm and welcoming …show more content…

The speaker claims that “We slowly drove—He knew no haste” (5). This gives off the calm effect of the ride. It makes the reader feel at ease and content. It described this death as something that is not a quick pulling of the rug from beneath the speaker's feet, but something expected that she had come to terms with. On the trip, the speaker and Death “...passed the Setting Sun” (12). Sunsets are seen as something that is relaxing and beautiful to witness. They are something to be appreciated and savored. By including this sunset on the journey, Dickinson is comparing the death and feelings associated with watching a sunset to those of death. She makes it feel relaxing and beautiful. Dickinson wants the reader to know that death does not have to be scary, it can be

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