Explication Emily Dickinson

Because I Could Not Stop for Death
In the Poem ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death” Emily Dickinson uses symbolism and allegory to portray a woman’s voyage to internal life. Emily’s main symbols in the poem are to hide the true meaning of the symbols.
In the first stanza the first symbol is introduced in the lines “I could not stop for Death- He kindly stopped for me-.” I these lines Emily explains how busy the woman is and she can’t stop for death. Dickinson then says “He” who is death takes the time to do what she cannot and stops for her. In the next couple lines which are “The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality.” Dickinson is trying to acknowledge that now this woman is with death on her ride to immortality, The “Carriage” is a symbol for her voyage to eternity.
In the second stanza Emily explains the woman’s slow ride. She expresses this in the line “We slowly drove He knew no haste.” Dickinson describes how death’s politeness makes the woman step back from everything keeping her busy. Dickinson shows this in the lines “And I had to put away my labor and my leisure too, for his civility.”
In the third stanza Dickinson explains the woman passing the life as she knew it. Emily then speaks of children playing at recess and fields off grazing grain. “We passed the setting sun.” This is the line of her transfer from one world to another.
The fourth stanza explains the woman transforming to immortality. “The dews drew quivering and chill.” This line describes the coldness of death. “For only gossamer, my gown my tippet only tulle.” Emily describes how the woman’s clothes change from beautiful fabric to the opposite. Now the woman is dead.
In the Fifth stanza the woman is taken too her “Home” which is described as a grave. “We paused before a house that seemed a swelling in the ground.” The home is a hole in the ground. “The roof was scarcely visible the cornice in the ground.” Dickinson explains how the “roof” is barely visible.
The last stanza is the woman talking.” Since then – ‘tis centuries and yet feels shorter. “The woman explains that all though she died a long time ago it feels as if it just happened. She remembers her feeling of when she first realized she was tooken by death.
As you can see in Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” She uses allegory and symbolism. She uses these to explain the woman’s voyage to eternal life in death. She takes the voyage and breaks it up in the stanzas. Emily explains everything that happened without saying it. This is how she uses Symbolism and allegory, to give hints to the reader.