Examples Of Transcendentalism In Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Emily Dickinson is a well known Transcendentalist who became famous when her poems were published after her death. She promoted Isolationism, and Death in her poetry. The majority of her poems were about death and the experience of death.

Emily’s poem the “Because I could not stop for death”, was about poem is about as a being or entity. In the beginning she spoke of how she stepped into Death’s carriage and how he nor her was in a her. They rode nearby a school filled with children playing outside, Emily as a young child loved to play outside and frolic about the her home. This was a possible explanation to why Death was showing her this scene. Another reason to why she depicted the School scene with the children is that she always yearned
to have children of her own. Emily was also shown to be wearing a “gown”, this leading to that she never got married a desire or regret of hers. Their final stop was the Morgue, and where she would be laid to rest and says that “I first surmised the Horses Heads Were toward Eternity” meaning Death. Death was the last thing we will do forever.

A later poem that was written, The “I heard a fly buzz When I died” entailed in detail what she thought her final moments would be like.
She spoke of the stillness of the air and of the room, and how she gave in and let what pleasures she had go. As she faded into Death, all she heard was the buzz of a fly. The pest that lingers for death to arrive, the fly is a symbol for Death. Death followed and waited ever so patiently for you, he is the first to greet you when you die and whisk you away to wherever he wants. Death looms over us all as a small fly, waiting for our time to run out.
Although each poem featured the same entity, they revealed him in two ways. The first poem, he was a gentleman a man to show her to her eternity. Her eternity was Death, but before Death took her to her final resting he showed her, her greatest desires and regrets when she was among the living. Death is more benevolent in his depiction, on the other hand Death is inpatient to come and snatch you away. Death in “I heard a fly buzz When I died” was more hasty and chose to wait until she had faded so that he may reap her and not leaving her for her final thoughts. Death came when she was ready instead of when Death was ready, These both show different sides to Death that many people do not think of because of the fear of sound like a Pessimist. Emily was no stranger when it came to depression, and she definitely did not try to hide it in her poetry that shocked the world upon her
death.