Because i could not stop for death&quot Essay Example for Free

Because i could not stop for deathquot Essay Emily Dickinson frequently explores death through her poetry, using her eponomous em dashes to communicate the confusion created by an intelligent and exploratory approach to the afterlife in a mind indoctrinated in Puritan dogma. Death is initially presented in this poem as a very different character from its usual personification as a malign, scythe wielding spirit. Here, as the poem begins, he takes the form of a charming suitor who kindly stops, and maintains his civility throughout their journey. As we progress through the poem, however, the reader becomes increasingly suspicious that the apparently benevolent Death has not, in fact, got Dickinsons best intrests at heart. The fourth stanza marks the change in tone that reveals this; the onset of ominous chill as the carriage passes into darkness highlights how unprepared Death has left her, providing no warning of what is to come. The nervous tone that the poem adopts in this stanza is created both by the breakdown of the previously iambic rythmn and the language of cold shivers that the poet uses; both of which emphasise the quivering nervousness of the unprepared. Dickinsons physical lack of preparation for the afterlife in the poem, her donning of gossamer and tulle for a journey into the night, reflects her lack of spiritual certainty in the real world; something reflected in several of her poems. Despite an upbringing filled with much gesture from the pulpit, doubt, not absolute faith, is the subject of much of her work. She remains steadfast only in her belief that This World is not Conclusion, as while she is confident in the existence of something more, the nature of the afterlife baffles her. This poem is also an exploration of an unusual view of death, as Dickinson inverts the normal metaphor of Death as the end of a journey into Death as a journeys beginning. Life, in this poem, is extrodinarily transient, compressed into the third stanza where childhood, the ripening Grain of middle age and the setting sun of old ages decline are ploughed through in four lines. The poet makes this already short liftime seem even less substantial by the anaphoric use of We passed, which increases the pace of the poem and gives the passage of time an inevitable feel. Where the poems journey of death concludes is unclear, but we do know that there is a pause, perhaps a terminal pause, at a house in the ground. Dickinsons use of imagery here is ingenious, as the readers initial confusion mimics the narrators, until we too surmise that this abode, this swelling in the ground is a grave, thought of only by the deceased as a house. The repetition and ryhme of ground at the end of two lines in this stanza gives it a pounding finality; suggesting perhaps that this, and not the expected Immortality, is to be Dickinsons final resting place. This unexpected turn causes the confusion that the image of the house parallels, and explains the last stanza, in which Dickinsons fear of perpetual existence in a grave has centuries feeling shorter than the day / I first surmised the Horses Heads / Were toward Eternity. The poem is, in fact, unclear, but I would suggest that the grave is to be Dickinsons final resting place; that the carriage paused not because it intended to go on but instead because the narrator has not yet realised her fate. The final dash of the poem, therefore, represents not continuing doubt as it does in This World is not Conclusion. but serves to remind the reader of the unending nature of Dickinsons internment. In light of this, the first stanzas Immortality may seem out of place, but its rhyme with me perhaps reveals its origins, as the narrator is consequently so strongly linked with its presence that we may imagine it is only Dickinson, and not Death, that welcomes immortality to the carriage, and that it is, in fact, only there as a result of her preconceptions. Because I could not stop for Death – is perhaps, as a result, quite a cynical poem, making no promises of salvation or a Christian heaven. It, in some senses, continues a trend set by This world is not Conlcusion. and Behind me – dips Eternity –; a trend of diminishing confidence: Dickinsons once absolute faith in a world beyond our own develops into a confused fear at the nature of the afterlife; it may be a Maelstrom in the sky, surrounded by Midnight, or perhaps just a house in the ground. All this confusion is the product of Dickinsons upbringing; the Tooth that nibbles at the soul is a doubt that was to Puritans damning, and once she admits to herself its existence her future is uncertain and heaven perhaps inachievable. Despite its bleak outlook however, the poem still stands a facinating exploration of the nature of the next world.