The Afterlife

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Recommended: Views of death and thereafter

The poems “Because I could not stop for death” by Emily Dickenson and “Holy Sonnets: Death be not proud” by John Donne are about the ways the speakers perceive Death and what happens afterwards. The afterlife is a mystery to everyone. Religions, science, people, and the world have their own opinions on what the afterlife entails for humankind, if there even is one. In the science article, “Science suggest there is an afterlife” by Jeffrey L. Sheler says that science can prove that there is an afterlife. The purpose of these two poems are to portray the different ways people view death.
The afterlife is defined as life after death. The afterlife isn’t known as a fact of today but many people do believe that there is an afterlife. “Nearly 80
The biggest group of people that believe in the afterlife are the Christians (Sheler). For hundreds of years Christians have believed in an “afterlife” but they believe in two types of afterlife where both last an eternity. One is seen as good which they call heaven and another which is seen as bad is called hell. Both of these places have originated thousands of years ago during Greek mythology when the Greek gods rules the earth and the sky and the underworld. This is where the ideas of heaven and hell originated. Peoples view of the afterlife have henceforth changed in the evolution of religion and science.
In the poem “Because I could not stop for Death” by Emily Dickenson is portraying death as a gentleman/suitor. Death is personified in the first two sentences in the poem “Because I could not stop for Death- / He kindly stopped for me- “(Dickenson lines 1-2). This demonstrates how the speaker feels about Death. The speaker finds Death as a kind gentleman stopping for her because she couldn’t stop for him. Soon the speaker says, “We slowly drove- He knew no haste / And I had put away / My
The speaker says, “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art no so;” (Donne Lines 1-2). The speaker is trying to act strong and seem brave by calling out death; the speaker calls death weak and tolerable. The speaker says, “Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.” (Donne Line 4). The speaker continues to talk down to death like Death cannot touch him; the speaker sees death as a coward and not responsible for death itself. The speaker says that death cannot control when someone dies but he just goes and gets someone when the die. The speaker believes that fate, chance, kings, and people who kill themselves is what kills not Death. “Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,” (Donne line 9). Throughout this poem the speaker’s tone towards death is cocky and

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