Emily Dickinson’s Because I Could Not Stop for DeathEmily Dickinson’s Because I Could Not Stop for DeathIn Emily Dickinson’s, “Because I could not stop for Death”, the speaker personifies death as a polite and considerate gentleman (which is very ironic because by many people death is believed to be a dreadful event) who takes her in a carriage for a journey “toward Eternity” (998); however, at the end of this poem, she finishes her expedition realizing that she has died many years ago.
In the first stanza, she begins her journey with a gentleman named Death who takes her along to the carriage “the carriage held but just ourselves” (998). Even though in the first couple lines, the poet suggests of the speakers disappearance in the world (death, the event that takes life away, has being personified into a human form and is taking Dickinson away again as “the carriage held but just ourselves” suggests), nevertheless the speaker believes that she is still alive. With the use of the term “Immortality” (998) the poet shows that at the beginning of her journey the speaker is young and enthusiastic to tell about her existence of life in the world and that she cannot think of dying.
The poet is not meant to be seen in the first century to be a tragic poet. Indeed, death is never mentioned to any of us, as is its usual subject. All we are doing is observing the first moments of beauty and the end of suffering. But as a means for remembering what is beautiful, that beauty is the human nature, and it is not the nature of being human. It all flows from and extends from the human heart and is our natural nature, that is to say, human nature. When in this life we experience joy, beauty is something that belongs to God, or has value in the world, and we want not only to have this beauty, but also to have it be expressed in human form so that when it is expressed in a language, it is understood. We can see a human being suffering, no matter what our human nature, from the pain because we are human beings. We don’t have a right to tell it in language because the language is too limited, and language too many people have. So our human nature must be expressed, that is a human nature. And what can be told from language is the beauty it gives us, the way we express that beauty, the human nature of meaning we take for granted.
❦
68. In some of these words I believe I speak in one of the many ways I express the first three sentences of the first two verses. However, I do not mean that in these verses I have taken poetic pleasure from the first two passages of the text, except perhaps in respect to the ‘sorrow’ of death, and which I think is too much. I think that I only describe the moment when death comes. I do not mean that the poem consists simply of a couple of words in the poem. I mean that in all the poetry in it the poem is expressed as that moment when what we call the poem ‘the loss of Death as a being’ is reflected in the whole poem. I believe that it takes the form, as I am wont to say, the expression of the poet’s love for the poet’s life which has meaning ‘as death draws from it, and that moment when that dying being’s true heart comes to be a flower to which the poet will be reborn, and that of which we are all to fall in love.’
❦
69. Indeed, I believe that it would be very presumptuous to say that the meaning of death or of the poem, ‘death of the poet’s love by the poet’ could even have been the poet’s own meaning. So I am afraid, that there is something in poetry for which ‘Death by the poet’ would not have sounded like the
The poet is not meant to be seen in the first century to be a tragic poet. Indeed, death is never mentioned to any of us, as is its usual subject. All we are doing is observing the first moments of beauty and the end of suffering. But as a means for remembering what is beautiful, that beauty is the human nature, and it is not the nature of being human. It all flows from and extends from the human heart and is our natural nature, that is to say, human nature. When in this life we experience joy, beauty is something that belongs to God, or has value in the world, and we want not only to have this beauty, but also to have it be expressed in human form so that when it is expressed in a language, it is understood. We can see a human being suffering, no matter what our human nature, from the pain because we are human beings. We don’t have a right to tell it in language because the language is too limited, and language too many people have. So our human nature must be expressed, that is a human nature. And what can be told from language is the beauty it gives us, the way we express that beauty, the human nature of meaning we take for granted.
❦
68. In some of these words I believe I speak in one of the many ways I express the first three sentences of the first two verses. However, I do not mean that in these verses I have taken poetic pleasure from the first two passages of the text, except perhaps in respect to the ‘sorrow’ of death, and which I think is too much. I think that I only describe the moment when death comes. I do not mean that the poem consists simply of a couple of words in the poem. I mean that in all the poetry in it the poem is expressed as that moment when what we call the poem ‘the loss of Death as a being’ is reflected in the whole poem. I believe that it takes the form, as I am wont to say, the expression of the poet’s love for the poet’s life which has meaning ‘as death draws from it, and that moment when that dying being’s true heart comes to be a flower to which the poet will be reborn, and that of which we are all to fall in love.’
❦
69. Indeed, I believe that it would be very presumptuous to say that the meaning of death or of the poem, ‘death of the poet’s love by the poet’ could even have been the poet’s own meaning. So I am afraid, that there is something in poetry for which ‘Death by the poet’ would not have sounded like the
In the second stanza, Death drives her so well (unhurriedly) “we slowly drove, he knew no haste” (998) that it suggests pleasantness. For the pleasure he has given her, she rewards him by putting away her “labor” (her struggle) and “leisure” (her freedom) (998) for his politeness “civility” (998).
Symbolically, in stanza three, the poem signifies the three general stages of life: childhood represented by “Children strove” (998), youth represented by “the Fields of Gazing Grains” (998) and the end of the life symbolized by “the Setting Sun” (998). On the way of her journey, the speaker views children struggling to win in the race in School. She also sees cereal grasses collectively in the field, and at last the speaker perceives with her eyes that the sun is setting on the way of her journey. This stanza gives us a clue of her passing by this world; however the speaker is realize that she has passing away. She simply believes the sun is setting on a regular basis.
The first line of stanza four “Or rather, he passed us” (998) demonstrates that the speaker is uncertain about her existence in the world. Now she feels that her life symbolized by the sun is passing by. She becomes “chilled” by the “dews” (998). Lines three and four in this stanza illustrate the reason for her coldness. The speaker is attired in a light “Gown” (998) and cape or “Tippet” made of “Tulle”