Use of Language and Structure to Illustrate the Journey of Death in Dickinson's Poem, Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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Emily Dickinson had unconventional views, which may explain the disconcertingly charming way in which she describes death in this poem. She presents the arrival of "Death" as a friend, or even a bridegroom, to escort the narrator in a leisurely manner towards her tomb. An awareness of immortality is conveyed throughout the poem by various literary techniques. The poem consists of six quatrains with no regular rhyme pattern, except for an occasional abcb half-rhyme. The numerous internal rhymes, and the alliteration however, creates a smooth and leisurely pace. The rhythm of the poem is euphonically methodical, with all the stanzas except the fourth having iambic tetrameter in lines 1 and 3, and iambic trimeter in lines 2 and 4 of each stanza. The rhythm reinforces the almost cheerful atmosphere of the poem. The first stanza begins in an almost self-reproachful way: "Because I could not..." They short, hard sounds "could not stop for" supports this regretful feeling and emphasizes how "kindly" Death is to stop for her. "The Carriage held just but Ourselves" conveys an intimate feeling, perhaps showing what a personal death is. The dashes at the end of the first three (and throughout the poem) create a feeling of endlessness, and lead up to the powerful fourth line "And Immortality." This is the only fullstop in the poem, and demonstrates how intensely aware the narrator is of both the supernatural and the eternal nature of death. The second stanza reinforces the leisureliness and awareness of eternity that the first stanza conveys. They drive "slowly", with a caesura to accentuate this, and the alliteration of "h" and "n" sounds create a soothing effect - as though comforting words are being whispered. This is reinforced b... ... middle of paper ... ...entous occasion death is by recognizing that "Centuries" of being dead "feels shorter than the Day" she became dead. However, she can now say this in a matter-of-fact tone (highlighted by the sharper 'e' sounds in line 21) because she now knows the relatively small eternal value one day has. This is powerfully encapsulated in the last line, where unlike the full-stopped "Immortality" of line 4, "Eternity" with they hyphen seems to show that the narrator has come to terms with her own fate. The poem then is a carefully constructed piece of art that bears timeless testimony to the plight of many people who grapple with the mystery of death and whether you can ever know if you're prepared for it. Emily Dickinson has composed a poem that has both memorably captured this human condition of fear of death, and created a sense of comfort by suggesting how it may arise.

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