Literature has proved to have very skewed opinions of death and the journey after. In some cases, writers portray a journey that is filled with coldness, regret, and sadness and in others, writers create a sense of warmth, reflection, and gratitude. Emily Dickinson chooses the later when she wrote the story that would later be titled “Because I could not stop for Death”, a story that depicts the journey that Death takes the speaker on towards the afterlife and immortality. From the very first line of the poem, readers understand that the poem is about death. The speaker notes how though she could not stop for Death, “He kindly stopped for me” (2). Death is not generally characterized as kind, usually people associate him with coldness and
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At the school, he is showing her adolescence and youth. It is important to note that the children are playing Ring around the Rosie, which is a song that sings about the Bubonic plague and death. The song could also echo how kind Death is because the Bubonic Plague was very gruesome and those infected were in copious amounts of pain, so Death could be seen as being almost merciful for relieving the victims from their suffering. The “Fields of Grazing Grain” is meant to represent adulthood where adults have to work in order to make a living, and passing “The Setting Sun” is meant to depict death, and the end of …show more content…
There is a sudden shift in the overall feeling of the poem. Up until that point everything had a warm fuzzy feeling around it with the kindness of death, them passing through the stages of life, but suddenly it gets cold. As the speaker seems to be dead, we can infer she has officially passed over to the afterlife. This notion is supported as she is wearing “only Gossamer, my Gown/-My Tippet-only Tule” (15-16), a gown that is similar in description to that which people would put on a dead body for a funeral. They “paused before a House that seemed/A Swelling of the Ground” (18-19). The “House” is her new home where her dead body will remain, her grave; the swelling of the ground is associated with the mass of dirt that covers a freshly dug grave. In the final stanza, it is revealed that “Since then-’tis Centuries-and yet/ Feels shorter than the Day/ I first surmised the Horses; Heads/ Were toward Eternity” (21-24). The speaker is telling this story centuries after her death. From this, readers can infer that the speaker had successfully made it to the end of her journey, she had made it to immortality. In her poem “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson portrays the journey the speaker goes on after her death. It is through this journey that readers can have a sense of understanding that death is not one specific set of characteristics. Death does not have to
At the school, he is showing her adolescence and youth. It is important to note that the children are playing Ring around the Rosie, which is a song that sings about the Bubonic plague and death. The song could also echo how kind Death is because the Bubonic Plague was very gruesome and those infected were in copious amounts of pain, so Death could be seen as being almost merciful for relieving the victims from their suffering. The “Fields of Grazing Grain” is meant to represent adulthood where adults have to work in order to make a living, and passing “The Setting Sun” is meant to depict death, and the end of …show more content…
There is a sudden shift in the overall feeling of the poem. Up until that point everything had a warm fuzzy feeling around it with the kindness of death, them passing through the stages of life, but suddenly it gets cold. As the speaker seems to be dead, we can infer she has officially passed over to the afterlife. This notion is supported as she is wearing “only Gossamer, my Gown/-My Tippet-only Tule” (15-16), a gown that is similar in description to that which people would put on a dead body for a funeral. They “paused before a House that seemed/A Swelling of the Ground” (18-19). The “House” is her new home where her dead body will remain, her grave; the swelling of the ground is associated with the mass of dirt that covers a freshly dug grave. In the final stanza, it is revealed that “Since then-’tis Centuries-and yet/ Feels shorter than the Day/ I first surmised the Horses; Heads/ Were toward Eternity” (21-24). The speaker is telling this story centuries after her death. From this, readers can infer that the speaker had successfully made it to the end of her journey, she had made it to immortality. In her poem “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson portrays the journey the speaker goes on after her death. It is through this journey that readers can have a sense of understanding that death is not one specific set of characteristics. Death does not have to