Because I Could Not Stop For Death Essay

“Because I could not stop for Death” “Because I could not stop for Death-He kindly stopped for me-” the first two opening lines of Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death”. Just like many of Dickinson’s other poems this one focuses on the aspect of death and what happens to us after we die. The poem starts out with death driving a carriage who stops to pick up the author. They then begin to drive along a road very leisurely and the author recalls all these different images she saw along the way. They passed by a school where children were outside playing in a circle and as they continues on they would pass by fields of gazing grain then they would finally pass the setting sun. Until ultimately they would stop at what Dickinson …show more content…
It is as if death had come to pick up his bride that is dressed in her gossamer dress to take her to her knew home for eternity. It gives a somewhat light hearted feel to the actual reality that she is dead. But it also helps to keep the feeling that death can be a very peaceful time in one 's life. Another example of allusion in the poem is during the carriage ride. During the carriage ride the author sees many different visions. She passes by a school with kids playing to symbolize someone 's childhood. The fields of gazing grain would represent adult life and how someone matures over time. Then finally when she passes the setting sun it symbolizes the ending of someone 's life. The whole carriage ride can be called an allusion to someone’s whole life or the carriage itself as a type of diseases of illness that slowly kills someone over their lifetime. However during the ride she does not seem to understand this and simply enjoys the ride. It is not until she reaches her destination at the “house” does she finally realize that those visions were actually over a very long time representing one 's life. Instead of describing her life in a very dark and sad way she instead highlights it with beautiful …show more content…
The title of the poem is “Because I could not stop for Death” while the title gives the impression that the author actually had no time to die and instead went on with their life. But actually the author could not escape death and had actually been dead for what the author said was “centuries”. Instead of this the theme of the whole poems suggests that while we are never ready for death it is a natural thing and instead of fearing it we should embrace it. Instead of fearing death the author is very accepting of what is happening and goes along with death on her ride into eternity. Because of the author’s calmness and acceptance of what had happened to her she began to embrace where she was and that her time seemed to be “shorter than a day” when infact it was for