Emily Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

1018 Words5 Pages
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is a poem that has multiple layers. Death being the primary theme, the reader has the task of deciding the speaker’s complex feelings when it comes to death. Notorious for her use of hyphens, Dickinson’s structure, wordplay, and diction expresses the speaker’s feeling of hopeless reverence against death. The (presumed) female speaker has accepted death and reflects what her life could/ would consist of. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” has a concrete structure of 6 stanzas consisting of 4 lines which, for the most part, ends with a hyphen. The even stanzas could connect to the speaker’s emotional state. She is able to discuss Death and all the images she pasts in a controlled and…show more content…
In the second stanza, “My labor and leisure too, / For his Civility— / We passed the School” the speaker’s thought is interrupted by the hyphen (Dickinson, 479). From this line, the reader can interpret the speaker and Death’s relationship akin to Stockholm’s Syndrome. The speaker views Death as a gentlemen. This hyphen serves to describe how the speaker’s thoughts strayed to her life passing her by. The hyphen also serves to interrupt the speaker’s other wandering thoughts, “For only Gossamer, my Gown— / My Tippet—only Tulle— / We paused before a House that seemed” (Dickinson,…show more content…
By personifying the grains by gazing at the speaker and death, the idea of the speaker traveling through her life, or what her life could have been, is supported. The focus on the sun also personifies it as a character which shows the passage of time. This image also serves as a symbol of death. The setting sun is often associated with the end of light, in this case light being life. For the last two stanzas, the amount of ungrammatically correct capitalization increases. This continues to bring attention to several images such as “We paused before a House that seemed / A Swelling of the Ground” describes the speaker’s grave (Dickinson, 479). The significance of the capitalization of house serves to bring a sense of finality. Like Heaven and Hell, her Home is her final resting
Open Document