“Because I Could Not Stop for Death”
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886), an American poet, was born in Amherst, Massachusetts. Living in a successful family which had an important status in the community, she lived a very introverted life. After having spent seven years in Amherst Academy, she carried on studying in Mount Holyoke Female Seminary for a short period of time. The locals considered her as an eccentric. Maybe this was the reason why she started to be noted for wearing white clothing, and seldom greeting visitors. One of her closest friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson said:” Emily emerged from her wonted …show more content…
The underlined two lines indicate that Dickinson assumed that with the accompanying of death she was resuming and reentering the immortality. After the sketchy understanding of the religious part of her composing background, then the following is the subconscious part of her composing background. According to William Cullen Bryant and Henry Thoreau, we can apply many of the characteristics of Dickinson’s verse in this poem: “2. Her style is elliptical -- she will say no more than she must --suggesting either a quality of uncertainty or one of finality.” For example, she held the word eternity until the last word of the last stanza to point out the main theme. “3. Her lyrics are her highly subjective -- she knows no other consciousness.” Emily Dickinson altogether used three I and at least ten me and my in this poem. Because the extremely limited life circle and introverted world, it was nothing more easier than applying the protagonism (the first person point of view) in the verse. “4. Ambiguity of meaning and syntax. Wrote Higginson: ‘She almost always grasped whatever she sought, but with some fracture of grammar and dictionary on the way.’” For example, in the fifth …show more content…
It means she had come to the late night of her life, and human race has nothing to armor themselves against the cold of death. Second, in the forth stanza, the writer chose the word gown to indicate that she went with death not with sadness but with the attitude to be a bride. Third, in the fifth stanza, the line “the tomb [is like] a house” points out that there is a place for her to dwell in the long time after passing away because death is not the end but “eternity.” Forth, “The setting sun passed us” means that human race is a tiny existence that can only be dominated by the power of time.