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

In the poem ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’, the capitalized subject ‘Death’ appears personified as a gentleman caller who takes the speaker as a genuine lover does to the ‘Carriage’ which symbolizes a matrimonial vehicle. ‘Immortality’ in the first stanza is likewise given the role of a passenger who seems to witness and affirm the bond between the two. ‘We slowly drove – He knew no haste’ would feel as if the poet’s notion of ‘Death’ is far from a single abrupt event but a journey that has a driver in the process. Dickinson uses an almost soothing tone along these lines to signify how well the speaker acknowledges the coming and the full presence of ‘Death’ which, in this case, is depicted as no longer an element of fright or disturbing apprehension. So instead of being terrified of a sudden occurrence, she welcomes ‘Death’ to the point of admiration and respect through the last three lines of the second stanza.

By considering ‘House’ to mean ‘grave’, the poet likely shifts or radiates the positive significance of ‘home’ and its comfort and sign of life than a burial place. Other than ground swelling, she does not even make mention of decay or any term close to about loss or deterioration which the literal ‘Death’ characterizes since the speaker plans to conclude her union with ‘Death’ as progressive with ‘Tis centuries’ and the phrase ‘toward Eternity’.

According to the protagonist, “He kindly stopped for me” and this is quite striking since the idea of ‘death’ in reality has most often been associated with the ugly truth of an ultimately unpleasant experience. Through Dickinson’s reflections, nevertheless, ‘death’ is kind and the poet desires for the reading audience to understand that instead of a tragedy, it is something familiar or someone who merely takes another by the hand for light travel, as though ‘death’ is that course of nature that any person must readily acknowledge as it only intends to accompany one in a long journey to a dimension not quite far from the mundane encounters of every day. By way of the attitude, sound, and structure that constitute the substance of the literary piece, a reader may find oneself dissolving a former perspective of death to entertain a favorable thought that it is not dreadful.

I suppose Dickinson would have at the time anticipated such a response of ‘change given death’ because she should know herself what ‘death’ is in every man’s common knowledge and perception. It is as if the creation of the work “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is a challenge for a reading individual to observe his or her faith in the beauty of life through an insight into death as well as the degree of persuasion one may yield to in attempting to see death in a whole new enlightening aspect.

 ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ bears much semblance to the theme established in the poem “Tell all the Truth but tell it slant” where Dickinson necessitates the need for capitalization to illustrate the essence of how truth ought to be communicated. One may recognize her intention of doing this to specifically lead the reader to the remarkable aspect of stressing paired terms that should register the key ideas to understanding the concept of ‘Truth’. Like the treatment given to the understanding of ‘death’, if the ‘Truth’ be ever told, it must be gradually carried out so as not to severely overwhelm the seeker or whoever obtains its disclosure by surprise. As elucidated in her application of simile in the second stanza, ‘Truth’ telling is likened to informing ‘Children’ of ‘Lightning’ which strikes with enormous impact and such knowledge might come too much for the children to bear if unraveled all at once.

A keener inspection of the line ‘Or every man -- ’ would conjecture Emily's influence of the Holy Bible when Paul was blinded by the excessive brilliance of the bright light which the angel who appeared before him on the road radiated. In a sense, the poet has created a spiritual foundation for her basic principle of ‘Truth’ yet the briefness of the poem equivalently summons the reader to explore the interesting irony within its origin which takes to account Paul’s life as a persecutor had kept him from seeing the ‘Truth’ there is in the Christian faith, implying that there already exists a layer of abstract 'blindness' to be peeled off other than the literal one caused by the heavenly creature before his conversion. Dickinson perhaps wishes for the appreciative reader to personally discover these forms of blindness where one is taken away to bring about the emergence of the other which consists of the ‘Truth’.