Figurative Language In Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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“Because I Could Not Stop For Death” is a lyrical poem whose theme mostly revolves around death, but also talks about time. The poem is about a women who didn’t have enough time, not even for death. Until one day, death took the time and came for her. The poem goes on talking about her “carriage ride” to eternity. With the use of metaphors and the concept of time, she explains this slow carriage ride to her eternal death. I believe that this poem contains irony as a whole. This poem talks about how she didn’t have enough time and when death comes for her, it makes her take a slow carriage ride. This slow ride can mean that she will now have all the time in the world. On their way to her death, they pass all these things that one would enjoy, perhaps because she didn’t have the time to slow down and enjoy the little things. Another irony would be when she says “Because I could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for me”. Death isn’t something people want to come for them. Either the speaker is using sarcasm or she just wanted to die. Emily Dickinson uses figurative language throughout her poem.…show more content…
Starting from line ten to line twelve, she says, “At Recess-in the Ring- We passed the Fields of Grazing Grain- We passed the setting sun”. These alliterations emphasize the fact that her ride continues going through different scenes. Another use of figurative language is repetition. She uses repetition in lines nine, eleven, and twelve when she repeats “we passed”. By repeating this, she is emphasizing that she keeps passing through several scenes and that her ride continues. It gives the reader a sense of never ending and makes it seem as a slow death. Another repetition that occurs is in lines eighteen and twenty when she repeats the word “ground”. Repeating the word ground makes it seem as if she is not just talking about the surface of the ground, but underground. Which can emphasize her death and can be compared to a
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