Emily Dickinson's Poem 712: An Analysis

Short Essay on Emily Dickinson’s Poem 712 In Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I could not stop for Death ---“ it deals a woman who basically tells the character Death she is too busy to die, but he takes her away with him anyway. Dickinson seems to deal with death time and time again in her poems, though she does not always use the same circumstances in each poem. When you read the first stanza it looks as if Death picks up the speaker in a carriage, which seems to be the metaphor throughout the entire poem (Dickinson). One may notice that she uses a lot of symbolism throughout almost every single stanza in this piece. During the second and third stanzas one may see the speaker sort of longing to keep her life, which seems to make her envy the youth. In the second stanza the speaker talks about how they “slowly drove” and that Death “knew no haste” (Dickinson). One may pick up from this that the speaker is now focusing on what is going to happen in that moment rather than continuing to ignore that she is close to the end of her life, like she was doing before. In the third stanza the speaker tells how her and Death pass by the school where children are at play during recess (Dickinson). This obviously symbolizes youth, which is an age that is typically found far away from death; she may have referred to youth because she is longing to be young again so that she may continue living her life. Throughout the fourth and fifth stanzas readers may begin to see the speaker’s life almost dwindle away. In the fourth stanza she is talking about how the weather starts to “quiver and chill”, which can symbolize this long journey Death has taken her on is coming to a sudden end. She also speaks about how her gown is made from gossamer, which is a delicate material (Dickinson). In the fifth stanza she speaks about a house that her and Death have stopped at (Dickinson). One may find that this house is actually a reference to the speaker’s grave, symbolizing death is here

Cited: Page Dickinson, Emily. “Because I could not stop for Death.” Poetry X. Ed. Jough Dempsey. 25 Aug 2004. 17 Oct. 2013 .