A Peaceful Departure
Death always makes me think of ghosts and scary things. Never would I be able to associate the end of life with a calm and ironic tone. Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for death”, is a prime example of a work that illustrates death as something other than gruesome and frightening. Death is but a well-mannered man taking her to her final resting place. Instead of fearing the end of her life she calmly accepts it and rides off to eternity. Through imagery, personification, and irony Dickinson provides the reader with the sense that death is more than what it seems.
Rather than taking the route of cursing death as many do, the poem sums up death as a gentle carriage ride to eternity. She personifies death by giving it a male identity stating, “We slowly drove-He knew no haste” (Dickinson line 5). She is both literally and figuratively welcoming death as a suitor as she calmly accepts the fact that he stopped to get her and it is as if they are on a date rather than he taking her life. The speaker in the poem refers to death’s “kindness”. The speaker also says that he drives her “slowly”. It is as if death is expressing kindness and respect towards her. Also, if death is in fact the chivalrous suitor, then that would make Immortality their silent chaperon. In as much as there is personification present in regards to the character of death, there is also a great deal of symbolism in the final ride of her life.
As the carriage takes her to die they pass many sights and these may very well be symbols in her life representing places she’s been and steps she’s retracing. The speaker goes from childhood to adulthood and finally to old age. Dickinson writes, “We passed the school, where children strove” indicating to the reader that the speaker is literally passing on as she drives along the road of life. After the children are passed she passes adulthood in the “gazing grain” as this represents her maturity. Finally, they pass the sun, or the sun passes them as the speaker puts it. This is the final symbol of crossing over as the sun is literally the warm light that shines on the earth and once that is gone all there is left is darkness and cold. Also, the speaker emphasizes the word “passed” using it repeatedly as if to make sure the reader recognizes the speaker is passing out of time and into an eternity.
Furthermore, she clearly compares a coffin to a home when she writes, “We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground” (Dickinson line 17). It has not only gotten cold after the sun has passed them but they have passed a sort of underground house which is obviously a coffin, an eternal home for cold, dead bodies. In her description of the tomb as a home she is illustrating comfort with a coffin rather than terror or fright. For some reason a coffin gives the speaker a sense of security just as a home does to any living person.
The last stanza of the poem has more abstract language and differs from the rest of the work. She has moved into death at that point and the imagery and symbolism is no longer tangible. She calmly surmises that the horse’s heads were towards eternity but was not sure of it. She has a rational calm view of life and the inevitability of death. In fact she seems to be so comfortable with her new life that looking back on it she states that it “feels shorter than a day” since she left (Dickinson line 22).
Moreover, throughout the poem there are symbols such as the sun, dewdrops, and the swelling of the ground that represent circles. These circles, or never ending objects, can very well represent life and the blurred lines of death. An eternity is forever and that is what she is depicting with these objects as orbs, a sort of circle of life model. The overall tone of the poem would have to be that of irony as death is a companion here rather than an entity to be feared. The theme that resonates with the reader is that death is not to be feared, as it is a natural part of the cycle of life.
In conclusion, Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I could not stop for death” depicts death in a different way. Rather than be scared of her demise the speaker in the work accepts the end of her life and welcomes death as a suitor taking her on her final carriage ride. The speaker quaintly describes the passing of her life as actually passing sights on the road representing the stages of her life. Both death and the sun are personified giving them male identities. Her imagery: the children, the sun, the dew, and the swelling ground represent the circular motion of the life cycle. The ironic tone of the poem brings out the theme of death not being one to be feared but welcomed. In the end the speaker accepted death as an inevitability and perhaps it is because of this that she felt that hardly any time had passed since.
