The poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson is an extended metaphor on death, comparing it to a journey with a polite gentleman in a carriage taking the speaker on a ride to eternity. Death and immortality are some of the principal concerns of the poetry of Emily Dickinson. In her poem “Because I could not stop for Death,” she compares dying to a ride in a horse carriage, and enjoys the company of Death. As they travel around town, Dickinson reminisces her childhood and her adulthood; they pause before a nearly buried house - buried by her memories and reminiscences. At last, the carriage brings her towards an eternity with death. Through unusual symbolism, personification and ironic metaphors Dickinson says that death is a mysterious being. Dickinson portrays death as an optimistic struggle, while most people have a shocking perspective of death. This poem is written in six quatrains. They are broken up into when she first meets death, through their carriage ride, observing different stages of life, to death and ultimately, to eternity.
The first stanza of "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" contains several examples of personification and imagery. For example, lines one and two say "Because I could not stop for Death-/He kindly stopped for me-." This is a personification because it portrays Death as kind. Death is a weak kind of being, as kindness is an emotion of which only humans are capable of expressing. But the two lines in the first stanza shows us an interesting image. The first is of death as a well-known gentleman, who is polite and kind and the second two lines of the first stanza are brief but meaningful, and after reading them a new picture is formed in our minds. This picture isn’t a mourn...
... middle of paper ...
...nifies death in that we too will eventually all join her in her under the earth. That death is inescapable.
In the final stanza, the writer carefully explains to us that, even though she has been inside of the carriage for an immeasurable amount of time, it does not matter, for time is meaningless. Time has and won’t have any boundaries. "Since then 'tis centuries and yet feels shorter then the Day I first surmised the horses heads were toward eternity" This shows us an endless period of timelessness. This also shows us the feeling of peace and restfulness after dying.
In conclusion, we find out the speaker's ride with Death took place centuries ago, so she's been dead for a long time. But it seems like just yesterday when she first got the feeling that horse heads pointed toward eternity or, in other words, signaled the passage from life to death to an afterlife.
There a lot of literary devices used in the excerpt from All the Pretty Horses that convey the true meaning in the scene. The hallway the man walks in has portraits of his ancestors whom he vaguely knows. This is connected to the present day when the man who he has gone to see now is also dead. The paragraph also uses figurative language like “yellowed moustache” and eyelids that are “paper thin” to tell us that the man he went to see is dead. The next sentence following that says “That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping.” putting emphasis on how the man in front of him isn’t sleeping and is truly dead. It also references the way that death is associated with sleep and called the long sleep. The excerpt also mentioned that the man is
While the poem starts with Death picking her up in his carriage, the final resting ground is not the grave site. It is said “We paused before a House that seemed / A swelling of the Ground” (17-18) which tells us they stop at the grave for the narrator’s death but they only pause there inferring it is not the last place they will visit on their journey. In the final stanza of the poem she says “Since then –‘tis Centuries –and yet / Feels shorter than the Day / I first surmised the Horses’ Heads / Were toward Eternity –” (21-24). This can be interpreted as an image that shows the horses who are guiding the Narrator and Death on their carriage ride, have their heads pointing straight towards eternity, which proves that once she is buried it is not the end as she is existing in some form of an afterlife. She also says, although it was centuries ago, it “Feels shorter than the Day” (22), proving that time plays no role in eternity and that her burial feels shorter than it actually was, once again supporting the idea of her existence in an afterlife. Once reading the final stanza and seeing her existence in eternity, the quote “The Carriage held but just Ourselves –/ And Immortality” (3-4) from the first stanza begins to make more sense for the readers. If you are in a carriage with death, you are thought to be on your final ride and so the only way to
As Edna St. Vincent Millay begins her second paragraph of Renascence, she describes herself as joyous of her coming death. Millay has been telling the reader of her frustration and anguish as she lies on the ground burdened by the sin of her life. She cries out in sheer pain, "Ah, awful weight!" She actually describes herself as "craving" death. The dying experience was becoming so painful for Millay, that she just wanted the process to be finished. The second paragraph welcomes Millay into her eternity and in turn she becomes relaxed and satisfied about her passing from life. Millay takes on a very difficult task of not only describing the final stage of death as a joyous thing, but also attempting to persuade her audience into believing the same thing.
In “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” the speaker is explaining the passage of her own death from beyond the grave in a more tender way. In the beginning, the narrator is too busy for death-- “Because I could not stop for Death/ He kindly stopped for me” (Belasco 1338). The character is not going to wait for her life to end; rather the speaker will live life and allow death come to her naturally. Death is what helps the speaker stop. Death causes the narrator to give up what made her so busy—“And I had put away/ My labor and my leisure too” (Belasco 1338). Death gives the speaker a chance to reflect on life and the memories of it. “Death is figured as the nineteenth-century “gentleman caller,” but one who arrives unexpectedly” (Greenberg 219). The speaker acts kind towards death because she feels that death is chivalrous when it picks her up in a carriage and gives her time when she has none. “The speaker encounters two entities in the carriage when it...
Because I Could Not Stop for Death is proclaimed to be Emily Dickinson’s most famous poem. This poem reveals Emily Dickinson’s calm acceptance of death. She portrays death as a gentleman that surprises her with a visit. Emily illustrates everyday scenes in a life cycle. While her metaphors explore death in an immutable way, her lines often contain as much uncertainty as meaning.
In this poem, the speaker’s encounter with death is similar to a courtship. In the first stanza of the poem the character Death is introduced as playing the role of the speaker’s suitor. In this way, this poem about death takes on an unexpected light tone, giving the reader a sense that the speaker is content to die and able to approach it with a sense of calm. Death’s carriage is also introduced in this stanza serving as a metaphor for the way in which we make our final passage to death. The final line in this stanza introduces a third passenger in the carriage. Both the uses of Immortality, the third passenger, as well as the use of Death are examples of personification.
“We paused before a House that seems” (line17 Dickinson). In the third stand, the speaker “passed” (lines 9,11,12) her lifetime on the trip, but the speaker and the death “paused” before an architecture now. The speed of the trip is slow down, and the speaker sees her destination. “A Swelling of the Ground/The roof was scarcely-/The cornice in the ground-”(lines 18-20 Dickinson). According to this description, it is easy to infer that the architecture is a cemetery, which is the destination of the speaker and her new house after she dead. “Since then-/Centuries-and yet/Feels shorter than the day” (Lines 21-22 Dickinson). To the speaker, it makes no difference, whether it is only one day or a thousand years because her body was dead and cannot leave the cemetery forever, but the speaker’s soul is get rid of the limitation of the body and has the eternal life. Compared with the immortality after death, the speaker feels the lifetime is shorter than a day and time is meaningless to her. “I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity-” (lines 23-24 Dickinson). The speaker starts to suspect that the destination of the trip is not the “House”, but immortality. Although, the body of the speaker was buried in the cemetery and stay there forever, her soul can continue the trip, and the direction of the horses’ head is the
This is highly ironic as He is connotatively depicted as gruesome, horrid, and like the Grim Reaper. Additionally ironic is that the Grim Reaper carries a scythe, and they pass a field of grain. As if the speaker is too busy and cannot find time for Death, “He kindly stops for [her]—” (line 2). There are further applications of metaphors and personification in “Immortality” (line 4), which is personified to represent the speaker’s soul riding in the carriage, and in, “[Death] knew no haste” (line 5), which emphasizes His docile description and can mean that the speaker had a slow
She depicts her life as magnificent, she lays her legs and arms out and feels the bliss of being this age with no prerequisites set upon her. It is this feeling and memory that the speaker will be pulling from for whatever remains of her life. It would,"…always be there, behind those nights (33)."Even when she is more established, the age she is currently, and considerably assist, later on, she can draw satisfaction and peace from recollecting what her life used to resemble. She will recollect when she had boundless drains (at regular intervals). Her life was kept exclusively by "[a] clock of cream and flame (36-37)" or the warmth of their closeness. This is the thing that the speaker alludes to as "heaven."A heaven she will always remember and can simply rationally come back to. She has "known heaven" and will always have
One primary element of death is the experience of dying. Many of of us are scared of the thought of death. When we stop and think about what death will be like, we wonder what it will feel like, will it be painful, will it be scary? In Emily Dickinson's poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death, she focuses on what the journey into her afterlife will be like. Dickinson uses the first person narrative to tell her encounter with death. The form that she uses throughout the poem helps to convey her message. The poem is written in five quatrains. Each stanza written in a quatrain is written so that the poem is easy to read. The first two lines of the poem, “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me;” (Clugston 2010), gives you a clear view of what the poems central theme is. Unlike most poems that are about death, Dickinson's attitu...
...o curb the appetite that humans have to know the secrets of life and death. This, then, is the central theme of all her poems: Though she believes strongly in idea of an afterlife, even she understands that nothing is certain, but that a bit of logic and a large amount of faith will guide her through the chaotic journey towards her final resting place—wherever or whatever it may be.
The speaker’s language towards the woman’s death in “The Last Night that she lived” portrays a yearning attitude that leads to disappointment; which reiterates human discontent with the imperfections of life. The description of woman’s death creates an image of tranquility that causes the speaker to aspire towards death. Her death compares to a reed floating in water without any struggle. The simile paradoxically juxtaposes nature and death because nature’s connotation living things, while death refers to dead things, but death becomes a part of nature. She consents to death, so she quietly dies while those around her refuse to accept her imminent death. The speaker’s description of death sounds like a peaceful experience, like going to sleep, but for eternity. These lines describe her tranquil death, “We waited while She passed—It was a narrow time—Too jostled were Our Souls to speak. At length the notice came. She mentioned, and forgot—Then lightly as a Reed Bent to the water, struggled scarce- Consented, and was dead-“ .Alliteration in “We waited”, emphasizes their impatience of the arrival of her death because of their curiosity about death. The woman’s suffering will be over soon. This is exhibited through the employment of dashes figuratively that form a narrow sentence to show the narrowing time remaining in her life, which creates suspense for the speaker, and also foreshadows that she dies quickly. The line also includes a pun because “notice” refers to the information of her death, and also announcement, which parallels to the soul’s inability to speak. “She mentioned, and forgot—“, refers to her attempt to announce her farewell to everyone, which connects to the previous line’s announcement. The dashes fig...
Imagery is a big component to most works of poetry. Authors strive to achieve a certain image for the reader to paint in their mind. Dickinson tries to paint a picture of ?death? in her own words. Thomas A. Johnson, an interpretive author of Dickinson's work, says that ?In 1863 Death came into full statue as a person. ?Because I could not stop for Death? is a superlative achievement wherein Death becomes one of the greatest characters of literature? (Johnson). Dickinson's picture to the audience is created by making ?Death? an actual character in the poem. By her constantly calling death either ?his? or ?he,? she denotes a specific person and gender. Dickinson also compares ?Death? to having the same human qualities as the other character in the poem. She has ?Death? physically arriving and taking the other character in the carriage with him. In the poem, Dickinson shows the reader her interpretation of what this person is going through as they are dying and being taken away by ?Death?. Dickinson gives images such as ?The Dews drew quivering and chill --? and ?A Swelling of the Ground --? (14, 18). In both of these lines, Dickinson has the reader conjure up subtle images of death. The ?quivering an chill? brings to the reader's mind of death being ...
Desperately, she asks once more; and her dog, who is concerned of being bothersome, finally announces his identity. The woman appreciates her dog’s devotion and loyalty, which she later learns is not so. Her grave became a random spot for the dog to burry its bone in. The poem’s time elapse is based on the start and end of a brief dialogue between the woman and the dog. Presumably, it is set in a graveyard, or in whatever place the woman was buried.... ...
“Now suppose you had a little colt, and you were your own mother to that little colt… And all of the sudden that same little colt went and died… You’d be sorry, wouldn’t you?” When dealing with death, an individual is encompassed with all kinds of feelings and emotions. Depression, denial, and guilt are all the components of mourning through death. This quote, relates to the thought that everything one experiences is associated with their environment. Iona and the mare experience two different environments. For Iona, it’s adjusting to a life without his son. The little mare lives a life away from the farms in a gloomy city. Iona places the little mare in a similar scenario he’s in, as if she can respond. Although she can’t, the horse’s compassion is visible once again. “The little mare munches, listens, and breathers on her master’s hands.” The healing power of the mare was the key to easing Iona’s suffering. When Iona couldn’t find a sense of closure through the communication with human beings he finally opens his eyes to realize the one listener he had, was his little white mare. He pours his sorrows out to her and not only did she show compassion by hearing his every word, she physically comforts him. The little breath on his hand represents the transfer of warmth from the mare to Iona on a cold winter day. Even though she’s restricted to what she can do, at the end