Death

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Recommended: The theme of death in poetry

Two Different Views on Death

Death can be represented in numerous ways. Emily Dickinson's view of death is a calm accepting representation. Wallace Stephens' view on death represents a celebration. Death can be a time of acceptance or denial. I have chosen to compare the differences on the theme of death between Emily Dickinson's poem, Because I Could not stop for Death and Wallace Stevens' poem, The Emperor of Ice-Cream.

Emily Dickinson's poem was written from the perspective of a woman dealing with the idea of her own death. Wallace Stevens' poem was written from the perspective of the narrator describing the events surrounding a wake at a neighbors death. We can surmise that Dickinson is explaining her thoughts about her own death and Stevens is explaining death about a woman that the reader does not know and is never referred to by name.

Dickinson's style in this poem is very structured and precise, much like her view of death. There are six stanzas in the poem with each stanza having four lines or quatrains. It is amazing to what degree she took to make each quatrain similar. The first and third lines have eight syllables and the second and fourth lines have six syllables. The first syllable is unstressed followed by a stressed syllable which follows throughout the entire poem. Wallace Stevens' poem has two stanzas of eight lines, however the meter of the poem varies. The syllables vary and do not follow a strict structure like Dickinson does. Stevens does have two rhymes in the last two lines of each stanza

The characters in each poem represent different things. In Because I Could not stop for Death, death is represented by the driver of the carriage. The narrator is the woman in the poem and the children represe...

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...could be interpreted as mute or it could mean that she looks dumb laying up on the table on display. In line seven, "let the lamp affix its beam" (15) might mean that the light is life.

The main theme of this poem is that life is short. Live it up while you are alive because no one cares after you are dead. This makes one believe that the author does not believe in life after death.

After reviewing both poems, we can argue that our beliefs about death can vary. Shall we accept death as inevitable and believe there is an afterlife or should we live for today and not worry about the afterlife? Both authors look at death differently. Emily Dickinson's poem, Because I could not stop for Death approaches death with respect and calmness. Wallace Stevens' poem, The Emperor of Ice Cream approaches death with a lack of respect for the dead and a time of celebration.

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