Because I Could Not Stop for Death - Emily Dickinsons Poem - Research Paper Example

Writer’s note – I ran about an hour late with your order trying to make sure the sources were scholarly. If this has not unduly upset your schedule, I would greatly appreciate it if you would extend the original deadline for the order so I will not be penalized for the delay. The completed paper follows. Emily Dickenson: Because I Could Not Stop for Death One of the wonderful aspects of poetry is its ability to appeal to the inner emotions of the reader with just a few lines and a well-developed metaphor. By employing a number of literary devices, poets develop the ability to present their readers with mental images that convey a depth of feelings and beliefs far beyond the ability of the few words selected. The reader is always suspicious that the writer intends something just beyond normal understanding. “The very making of a poem involves a transformation from perceived reality or experience into a verbal utterance shaped by the poet’s imagination and craft” (Pettit, 2001). As one might expect, the effect of the poem will often depend on the ability of the poet to present their ideas, emotions and impressions in the form of strong imagery that accurately defines the experience. This imagery is the device that places the mental image in the mind of the reader (or listener) without their explicit consent and begins to conjure up a sense of sympathy with the poet regarding their emotional response to the subject. Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” relates the concept of a woman who has died during the course of her regular duties. With its simple presentation and gentle rhyme, the poem is surprisingly touching. The poem’s ability to soothe us regarding the concept of dying is largely due to Dickinson’s masterful use of personification, symbolism and imagery. The poem begins with the assumption that Death is an individual as the speaker of the poem tells us “He kindly stopped for me” (2). The genteel way in which this is expressed gives the impression that this Death is not someone to be feared but is instead something along the lines of a suitor. He picks her up in a carriage complete with a chaperone in the form of Immortality and takes her on a gentle ride. This is made clear as she points out that “he knew no haste” (5). Carriage rides were a common activity for the more well-to-do classes to engage in and the way in which Death’s character is described presents this as one of the most wished-for moments in a woman’s life – the ability to go riding with the man of one’s dreams. Death is so charming and ‘civil’ that the narrator voluntarily and without question puts away her labor and leisure in order to go with him in spite of the fact that, moments before, she had been unwilling to acknowledge his calling cards. Some critics, such as B.N. Raina, feel that Dickinson’s insistence that she could not stop for death indicates she was attempting to place death within the framework of not existing – it is a nonreality that exists only “within the time-bound finite world” rather than the “imaginative infinity of consciousness” (Raina, 1985). If read in this way, the personification of a Death that “kindly stops for me” can be seen as an instance in which the individual, the idea of the individual, simply stops as in ceases to be in the mind of the speaker. Understanding him to be simply a different state element of her conscious understanding, the fear of Death is removed from the event, leaving her only with the peaceful and gentle ride to follow. In giving Death form and figure in this way, she has personified the idea of Death into a more gentle, more graceful, more loving figure than it is typically portrayed as being. Dickinson also employs a great deal of symbolism within this poem in order to reinforce her conception of a peaceful death. The travel from the physical world of the body to the world of the spirits is symbolized by the gentle ride in a carriage shared with pleasant company. Rather than placing the idea of death within the context of something that never changes, the end of all things, this presentation characterizes it as a time of transition. The poem is full of activity, motion and change. The narrator passes things as they drive by, the landscape around her changes. At the same time, she sees that life continues outside her window – there are children playing, wheat growing, winds and weather at work. The children seen playing in the schoolyard that is passed upon this journey symbolize the continuation of life even in the face of death. She tells us that the “children strove” (9), indicating that they were not finished with their toil and play as the speaker now is, thus presenting a strong contrast between the activity of life and the passive observation of death as the speaker passes silently by. This idea of the activity of life contrasted with the inactivity of death is also supported by the “fields of gazing grain” (11) that symbolize growth and gain. “She sees children play in a schoolyard; she sees a field of ripe wheat or corn, and then she sees a sunset. No doubt, Dickinson deliberately chose these particular images to represent three stages of life—childhood, adulthood, and old age. The reader is also reminded of the claim that during the process of the soul leaving the body, one sees one’s ‘life pass before one’s eyes’” (Grimes, 2007). Rather than the terrifying moment of death phrases like ‘see my life pass before my eyes’ tend to evoke, the narrator’s experience here passes by slowly, with the gentle speed of the carriage, allowing her to savor the memories and the time. Imagery also plays a large role in the peace and serenity of the poem despite the topic. In her description of her pleasant ride, Dickinson depicts a quiet slow ride through the countryside with nothing to frighten her or make her uncomfortable. Her companions are gentle and courtly and she is expected to do nothing but sit and relax, having “put away / My labor, and my leisure too” (6-7). Although carriages are no longer a common experience, everyone today has, at one time or another, had the experience of simply riding in a car, with no other activity to do but watch out the windows. Because of the way she presents them and the language she uses, the scenes that Dickinson describes are almost otherworldly, transcending time and space to exist for us still. Perhaps this is what helps us to enter a more thoughtful frame of mind to pay closer attention to the words used to express her ideas. An important point in the poem is made, for example, in the way Dickinson chooses to discuss the children as they “strove, / At recess, in the ring” (9-10). As this line is read, it raises the image of children struggling against one another within a confined space, perhaps fighting as in a boxing or wrestling match. While this may seem to be a very innocent activity on the part of the children, Dickinson’s use of the word ‘strove’ reminds the reader that she had not been able to stop her own labors until Death came calling for her. This connection to the world of work could be what prompted Patricia Engle to suggest that the children’s activity symbolizes not the innocent diversions of childhood but “the thrashings of professional competition that occur in the ladder-climbing stages of one's career” (Engle, 2002). The impression is that the difference between life and death is the cessation of any kind of competition with others – there is no reason to compare as everyone is alike when doing nothing. Through her delicate use of imagery, strong ability to employ symbolism and her characterization of Death, Dickinson manages to present a conception of death as a peaceful, pleasant, pain-free journey. Her comparisons of death to the activity of living consistently illustrate the many ways in which death is the more preferred state, particularly when viewed from behind the carriage glass. However, her opening line in which she says she “could not stop for Death” (1) acknowledges that the peace of the grave is not generally understood by the living. At the same time, she indicates that a great deal of the fear of Death seems to be wrapped up in the idea of cessation, ceasing to be. When this fear ceased to be for her through the realization that Death was nothing more than a new conscious experience, she was able to realize a much happier existence in life. From these opening lines depicting the true character of Death, Dickinson spends the rest of the poem reassuring her reader that Death is a peaceful thing far removed from the terrifying images it is frequently given. The soothing images she uses to depict the idea of a life flashing before her eyes include the slightly off-putting way in which the children are seen to be constantly in competition with each other instead of being able to enjoy the small miracles of life as it is possible for the ‘gazing grain’ to do and the sight of a beautiful sunset to suggest it’s time now for bed and soothing rest. At the same time, it is not given the sense of finality that it is given in many depictions because of the way Dickinson fills her poem with movement and changes, suggesting again that Death is simply a change in understanding rather than terrifying oblivion in a darkened void. In every way throughout the poem, Death is welcomed and embraced. Works Cited Dickinson, Emily. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death.” November 21, 2009 Engle, Patricia.  “Dickinson’s ‘Because I Could Not Stop For Death.’” The Explicator. Vol. 60, (2002): 72-75. Grimes, Linda Sue. “Looking Back from Eternity.” American Poetry. March 9, 2007. Pettit, Rhonda. “Biography of Adrienne Rich.” Encyclopedia of American Poetry. 2001. November 21, 2009 Raina, B.N.. “Dickinson’s Because I could not stop for Death.” Explicator. Vol. 43, I. 3, (Spring 1985): 11-12. Read More