Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” provides a wealth of language that serves to give the reader a deeper and more intricate picture of what is occurring in the poem by utilizing powerful images. The reader may garner a heightened level of understanding about the poem by examining these figures of speech and how they function within the poetry. In the first two lines of Dickinson’s poem, she uses language that sets the mood of the poem: “Because I could not stop for Death- / He kindly stopped for me” (1-2).
By stating it in this manner, the impression is given that Death as a concept or as a character is not an unrelenting and violent force, but rather a kind and patient being, who is doing a service to the soon to be deceased. The word “kindly” is key in providing that insight, as it conveys patience and well as willingness. It does not make Death sound angrily patient, as if He only is because his job requires such, but rather that He is more than happy to be doing this particular service for the subject. This mood is further emphasized and given validity when Dickinson states, “We slowly drove-He knew no haste” (5).
Again, Death is shown to be calm and relaxed, not in a rush. Teaming this line with the final line in the poem gives further clairvoyance to why Death may be so willing to plod along and make no haste. “Were toward Eternity-“ (24); The reader is beckoned to understand that a patient and time consuming carriage ride is really not that unreasonable when it is leading towards forever. When examining these two lines together, it certainly makes clear that time is the least of concerns for both the driver and the passenger.
Dickinson goes on to establish a contrast between life and death by providing images that represent both dynamics; “We passed the School, where Children strove” (9). The image of youthful vigor and potential is exemplified here, within this line. Also, it is important to note that the children are at a school, a place that gives the sense of enlightenment, understanding and growth, both in the physical and in the psychological. To counter this and to set up an opposing image Dickinson goes on to state “We passed the Setting Sun-“ (12).
Few images in our language and text have been used more often to provide a sense of death and ending than the aforementioned. As the sun sets, darkness falls; a day makes way for night, which in turn makes way for a day, and in a sense, so is life. These two competing images (both in the same stanza) are a wonderfully constructed representation of how fleeting life is, possibly as fleeting as the sunset. As the recollection of the trip into eternity continues for the speaker in the poem, a remembrance occurs that is quite splendid and important to the death image.
Dickinson states “We passed before a House that seemed / A Swelling in the Ground- / The Roof was scarcely visible- / The Cornice-in the Ground-“ (17-20). Here, Dickinson (through her speaker) recalls viewing a house, very possibly, that house is a tomb or a sarcophagus that is but mildly protruding from the earth. Again, an image is supplied and the theme that death is all around the speaker continues. Continually interjected in the poem are death images, and they follow the speaker throughout the whole of the trip.
This gives a sense that Death is really never that far removed from the speaker, and all the while doing this, the reader is forced to question how far away death really is from him/her at any given time. Dickinson’s final stanza is in many ways a perfect conclusion to this death poem, as it gives the reader an idea as to what death may really constitute. “Since then-‘tis Centuries-and yet / Feels shorter than the Day / I first surmised the Horses Heads / Were toward Eternity –“ (21-24). Dickinson contends here that there is nothing to death, and that a moment of life is more easily recalled than centuries of lifelessness.
Staunch boredom and nothingness is all that may exist for the speaker, because the hundreds of years spent in the ground have gone by like the blink of an eye, because, Dickinson would state, there is nothing there, nothing but a sterile and unfortunate state of existence where one is aware of their death, but can do nothing of it, but ponder and recall. Again, images of death are laid forth by the existence of horses’ heads (often a symbol of death and the underworld), as well as the previously sighted use of “eternity”. The speaker now has exactly that long to consider the occurrences of the day that Death kindly stopped.
