Theme Of Because I Could Not Stop For Death

How do we foresee death? How do we as humans accept fate, that all living must die? Sometimes its is hard to understand as shown in the poems, Janet waking by John Crowe Ranson, Because I could not stop for death by Emily Dickenson, and Barbie doll by Marge Pierce. Death can be seen differently by everyone and these authors definitely had different views. In the poem “Because I could not stop for death” the author has personified death, as if to make it easier for the reader. If we can imagine something similar the the human population it becomes something personal and makes it okay but if the author would have left death something dark and mysterious it wouldn’t be as personal and would be harder to except making the author push death away. The tone in this poem is blissful. The main character is dying but she doesn’t realize completely until the end. She is driving past
all of her favorite places with death, seeing all of the things in life that brought her joy. This imagery is nostalgic and brings a sense of memorabilia in a whole new level. Death is made peaceful and easy which is much different than the other poems.
“Janet waking” isn’t as you would imagine her waking up in the morning, more so as her waking up to real life.
She is a young, innocent, and naive girl around the age of eight or nine. Her pet hen died making her realize that life isn’t as happy as it is always played out to be. Throughout the poem the tone changes, starting out being light heart and ending with heavy or deep emotions. I love how powerful the image of Janet waking up and kissing her mother and father, but no kisses for brother. And when she goes outside to see her pet hen she finds the hen to be dead. This is heartbreaking for Janet as she is not mentally mature enough to handle this on her own. She has always depended on her mother and father to take care of things for her but in this situation there is nothing anyone can do to bring back the hen. She cries and yells demanding for this hen to wake from her sleep and to walk again. Nothing can happen because after all she is dead. Death is portrayed in this poem as difficult and something to avoid. It is shown as something so much more complex than we could ever really
understand.
Self acceptance can be a very real struggle. In this poem the girlchild could not come to terms with how her body looked, and how the world told her that she was supposed to look like. If looks could kill would have been a great title for the poem because our girlchild killed herself in order to look like a barbie doll by cutting off her nose and legs, for they were too large for her body making her think that she was unattractive. When she was dead and in the casket they reassembled her arms, and built on a fake nose that looked much better than before. The visitors said how pretty she was, now. The last line in the poem is interesting “To every woman a happy ending.” I thought this was very ironic because her mind consumed her, and she was unhappy with herself, thus causing her death. The tone of the poem is sad, and depressed. The reader leaves the story with this thought of “Well she should have just accepted herself.” But in all reality we all are in some way part of the group that tries to determine how things SHOULD or how they COULD be. And this mindset doesn’t help the situation. The imagery in this poem is great, you can just imagine her trying to smile and go on a diet and laughing but slowly losing faith in this method of imitation happiness. Death is portrayed in this poem as something that is used a last resort, when no other options seem sensible.
Death can be seen in so many different lights. Death can be a person or simply just an emotion. The thought of life can be too much as shown in the poem “Barbie doll” she ended up taking her life based on negative thoughts sent from the people around her. She felt alone and like killing herself was her only option. Death can feel like a memory, driving by things that had happened in your life as in the poem “Because I could not stop for death”. Or death can come too soon for people and sweep them from under their feet whisking the innocence away like in the poem “Janet awakening”. Overall death is and individual thing and inevitable.