Emily Dickinson 712 Analysis Essays Of 1984

Tone, or the emotional stance of the speaker in the poem, is a central artifice in “Because I could not stop for Death.” Though the subject is death, this is not a somber rendering. On the contrary, Death is made analogous to a wooer in what emerges as essentially an allegory, with abstractions consistently personified. Impressed by Death’s thoughtfulness and patience, the speaker reciprocates by putting aside her work and free time. Judging by the last stanza, where the speaker talks of having “first surmised” their destination, it can be determined that Death was more seducer than beau. The tone of congeniality here becomes a vehicle for stating the proximity of death even in the thoroughfares of life, though one does not know it. Consequently, one is often caught unprepared. The journey motif is at the core of the poem’s stratagem, a common device (as in poem 615, “Our Journey had Advanced”) in Dickinson’s poetry for depicting human mortality.

Stanza 3 offers an example of Dickinson’s substantial capacity for compression, which on occasion can create a challenge for readers. This stanza epitomizes the circle of life, not so much as to life’s continuity despite death, but more in fusion with the journey within the poem—life as procession toward conclusion. Thus, “the School, where Children strove” applies to childhood and youth. Dickinson’s dictional acuity carries over to “Recess—in the Ring.” Early life, with its sheltering from duress and breakdown and death, its distance in experience from the common fate, is but a deceptive lull—its own kind of seduction and, hence, recess from decline. Yet children are said to be in the “Ring.” Time is on the move even for them, though its pace seems slow. Ironically, the dictional elements coalesce in the stanza to create a subrendering of the greater theme of the poem: the seduction of the persona by Death. The children are also without surmise, and like the speaker, they are too busy with themselves (as represented in the verb “strove”) to know that time is passing.

Dictional nuance is critical to the meaning of the last two lines of the third stanza. The word “passed” sets up verbal irony (the tension of statement and meaning). The carriage occupants are not merely passing a motley collection of scenes, they are passing out of life—reaching the high afternoon of life, or maturity. Maturation, or adulthood, is also represented in the “Fields of Gazing Grain.” This line depicts grain in a state of maturity, its stalk replete with head of seed. There is intimation of harvest and perhaps, in its gaze, nature’s indifference to a universal process. Appropriately, the next line speaks of “the Setting Sun,” meaning the evening of life, or old age.

Reiteration of the word “passed” occurs in stanza 4, emphasizing the idea of life as a procession toward conclusion. Its recurring use as a past-tense verb suggests the continuation of an action in the past, yet the noncontinuance of those actions in the present in keeping with the norms of the imperfect tense. Human generations will collectively engage in the three life stages, dropping out individually, never to engage in them again.

Dictional elements in stanza 5 hint at unpreparedness for death. The persona’s gown was but “Gossamer,” a light material highly unsuitable for evening chill. For a scarf (“Tippet”), she wore only silk netting (“Tulle”).

The poem is written in alternating iambic tetrameter and trimeter lines, with near rhyme occasionally employed in the second and fourth lines. Regular rhyme occurs sporadically and unexpectedly in its spatial distancing. The use of the dash in the stanza’s concluding line compels the reader to pause before entering into the monosyllabic prepositional phrase in which there is a heaviness that suggests the grave’s finality. The seemingly disheveled rhyme scheme in actuality intimates one of the poem’s central themes: unpreparedness.

In this poem, Dickinson’s speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, describing her journey with Death, personified, from life to afterlife. In the opening stanza, the speaker is too busy for Death (“Because I could not stop for Death—“), so Death—“kindly”—takes the time to do what she cannot, and stops for her.

This “civility” that Death exhibits in taking time out for her leads her to give up on those things that had made her so busy—“And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too”—so they can just enjoy this carriage ride (“We slowly drove – He knew no haste”).

In the third stanza we see reminders of the world that the speaker is passing from, with children playing and fields of grain. Her place in the world shifts between this stanza and the next; in the third stanza, “We passed the Setting Sun—,” but at the opening of the fourth stanza, she corrects this—“Or rather – He passed Us –“—because she has stopped being an active agent, and is only now a part of the landscape.

In this stanza, after the realization of her new place in the world, her death also becomes suddenly very physical, as “The Dews drew quivering and chill—,” and she explains that her dress is only gossamer, and her “Tippet,” a kind of cape usually made out of fur, is “only Tulle.”

After this moment of seeing the coldness of her death, the carriage pauses at her new “House.” The description of the house—“A Swelling of the Ground—“—makes it clear that this is no cottage, but instead a grave. Yet they only “pause” at this house, because although it is ostensibly her home, it is really only a resting place as she travels to eternity.

The final stanza shows a glimpse of this immortality, made most clear in the first two lines, where she says that although it has been centuries since she has died, it feels no longer than a day. It is not just any day that she compares it to, however—it is the very day of her death, when she saw “the Horses’ Heads” that were pulling her towards this eternity.


Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any poem. In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. He is no frightening, or even intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she was too busy to find time for him.

It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in “held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another alliterative word—her life.

Indeed, the next stanza shows the life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is contrasted with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing, which could be emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life—although the children are playing “At Recess,” the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence. The use of anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine.

The next stanza moves to present a more conventional vision of death—things become cold and more sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it quickly becomes clear that though this part of death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image of the grave as home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final stanza, which ends with immortality. Additionally, the use of alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza as a whole less sinister.

That immorality is the goal is hinted at in the first stanza, where “Immortality” is the only other occupant of the carriage, yet it is only in the final stanza that we see that the speaker has obtained it. Time suddenly loses its meaning; hundreds of years feel no different than a day. Because time is gone, the speaker can still feel with relish that moment of realization, that death was not just death, but immortality, for she “surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity –.” By ending with “Eternity –,” the poem itself enacts this eternity, trailing out into the infinite.

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