Because I Could Not Stop For Death By Emily Dickinson

“Because I could not stop for Death,” is a poem by Emily Dickinson where she uses death as a person and the speaker is communicating its journey from beyond the grave. This is my first time reading Dickinson and I am impressed by her style; furthermore in the few poems I had read I notice the usage of death over and over again. In this poem she persuades the reader by the way she opens the poem; the speaker is too busy for death, so death “Kindly” takes the time to do what she cannot and waits for her. Death is not frightening or intimidating but rather a soft and lighted guide that leads her to eternity and she feel no fear when she pick her up in his carriage. The sense of peace takes over the reader and can feel she is happy that death
came for her as an act of kindness since she was too busy to find time for him. I love how Dickinson has given death a beautiful spirit instead of the scary phenomenon that we all have to face at some point in our lives. This poem has a very clear message that Dickinson at some point in her life viewed death as something gentle and sweet, perhaps because of the idea that she would be taken from this life to a better place. Similarly, by using words like “kindly”, “leisure”, “passed”, “riding” and “slowly” suggests she had a very comfortable and peaceful attitude toward death and was extremely prepared for it. To conclude I would like to emphasize the usage of the carriage ride as a symbol of life from childhood to maturity and finally death has the reader thinking deeply on the things that are over looked- taken for granted- when we are alive that assume a certain importance when one feels death coming or prepared to departure to a better place.