Because I Could Not Stop for Death by Emily Dickinson - Essay Example

“Because I Could not Stop for Death” is a poem that describes Emily Dickinson’s meditation on death and immortality. Death is personified in the poem and is regarded as a suitor escorting his beloved. However, the meaning of the poem is very elusive. Using various images and fusing them with the central idea of death, Dickinson makes the readers quite death-friendly. This paper is an analysis of the poem to see how the “Gentleman-caller’ takes away his beloved and how she reacts to his call. In short, the focus of the paper is on the poet’s treatment of death and immortality.
The poet visualizes death as a lover who comes to take her out for a ride. In fact, with her love for life, she has not sought the company of Death. She is busy with her routine activities. It is Death who has sought her. “He kindly stopped for me”, says the poet (Emily). He wanted to have her company and he is extremely decent in seeking it and has great patience to wait for her. In the carriage, there are “just ourselves and immortality” (Emily). Immortality is the constant companion of Death. Unlike the hot lovers who pursue their beloved ones, Death is very calm and steady: “We slowly drove he knew no haste” (Emily). It is evident from the opening lines in the poem that the poet was helpless as the lover’s genteel qualities were too superb to ignore his call. Therefore she “had put away/ My labor and my leisure too,/ For his civility” (Emily). Thus by taking the image of a lover, the poet not only simplifies or nullifies the fear of death but also initiates the readers into the necessity of surrendering to death as a beloved does to her lover.
The beauty of the poem lies in the description of the journey which the poet enjoys in the company of Death and Immortality. As the carriage progresses through its journey, the poet witnesses some beautiful scenes for the last time. She finds children playing games during a school recess: Next, she passed through a field: “We passed the fields of grazing grain” (Emily). The setting sun is the next scene she observes as the carriage slowly moves. These scenes are significant in the poem. The children at play are happy and unmindful of the passing carriage. Childhood or young age is a stage in one’s life that is unmindful of death. The ‘grazing grain’ suggests ripeness and abundance in nature, which again is a contrast to death. Both symbolize the indifference to death so long life is at its richness. Here the dead eyes of the poet turn the passive field active. The sunset suggests the poet’s journey beyond youth and nature towards eternity. Another significant meaning in these lines is that the journey towards immortality is one that moves away from time and space.
The fourth stanza of the poem is a sudden realization on the part of the poet about her actual situation. That is why she makes some important corrections. In the third stanza three lines begin with “We passed”, but the poet realizes the fact that as she is in the company of death she is beyond the power of movement. Thus, she changes her earlier statement into “Or rather he passed us”, meaning that the setting sun passed them. It is night now and the “dews drew quivering and chill” (Emily). The chillness suddenly reminds her of her thin dress, “only gossamer my gown-/ My tippet only tulle” (Emily). She has become totally conscious of the place and time, rather she has crossed the world of time and place into a world of timelessness. The dress should have been the conventional burial dress, not a bridal dress. But again, she tries to justify her dress by thinking that she is getting ready for a heavenly wedding.
This new awareness prepares the poet to imagine that she is entering the house of her eternal life partner. But the house here is “a swelling of the round”, the roof of which was “scarcely visible”, “The cornice but a mound” (Emily). The carriage stops here. The last stanza explains how the poet from her busy life finally reaches her eternal abode. “Since then centuries, but each/ Feels shorter than a day” (Emily). The calendar time, the clock time, has given way to eternal time.