Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

In many literary works loss is a driving force, and it pushes the characters in a story to go beyond the limits they previously thought they had. Life cannot be put on hold just because of loss and hardships, but this sometimes enables people to make irrational decisions, and many are left thinking was it the right choice? This is the case in Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for death”. The woman is forced to look over her life and the decisions she has made when death comes for her. The life she had was taken from her, and now she is forced to relive it all as a passenger. While in the novel All Over But the Shoutin’ Rick Bragg’s life was taken from him as well but in a different way. Bragg was unable to enjoy his childhood and had to grow up faster than most forcing him to also make irrational decisions. Both the speaker of “Because I could not stop for death” and Rick Bragg’s lives are taken away from them and completely left in the hands of others. Now they are left with a sense of regret and longing for a better life. …show more content…
Death comes for the speaker and forces her to relive her life for eternity.
“Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horses' heads were toward eternity.” (Dickinson) Now that she is dead, one could argue that looking over her life she feels a bit regretful on some of the decisions she has made and now wishes she would have chosen to do some things differently. The most prominent difference between her and Bragg’s loss is that she can longer change anything that has happened however, Braggs can now improve the quality of his life and continue on.
Braggs loss still deals with his life being taken from him but in a different form, his