Because I Could Not Stop For Death - Notes

The exemplification of time as an element is represented in a paradoxical circumstance – for time is hurried and yet restricts its pace concurrently. Through the poet’s insanity, time has developed into that which is but a mere non-existent concept– time has been shed of its original purpose, which was once to regulate her life. Time has been distorted through the speaker’s enjoyment in death – it no longer follows the conventional understanding of time that we comprehend; en route to her grave, time rushes beyond what she is accustomed to in life and she finally immerses herself in indulgence – her last day of life is too slow which is all too ironic. Reflecting on carriage journey – cannot define time, non specific, after death , time stops, describes abstract beyond our recognition – mankind does not experience such courses of events and thus time loses its association with the speaker as life has become the past. Death is a deliverance to her, when alive – time slaughters her diminishing soul, time reluctant to pass – when death finally stops, time freezes – parallel world whereby emotions do not reign her existence.

SYMBOLS

Throughout journey – many symbols emerge –, immortality, ‘recess’ ‘slowly drove’ ‘no haste’ – though time does not exist however the speaker’s mentality has lingered amongst the living cosmos - time reminds us of our being, her heart still holds aspirations in the world.

‘He knew no haste’ – death cannot feel this need to attain her demise

Being alive was a form of suffering, reminisce past of work ‘grain’ ‘setting sun’ , once felt that such events were painstaking however the carriage journey provokes an abrupt acknowledgement that the course of these events could be reviewed as but a brief cloud of smoke that approaches and then dissipates into nothing.

‘feels shorter than a day’ – reiterates that her enjoyment outweighs the suffering she once felt

Dickinson: ‘forever is composed of nows’ – from the poet’s perspective – being alive is not life or death, after death, time itself suspends, no tension pulling her existence into a dark void, she is only the souls that remains  – that which is the eternity she yearns for.

In ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ – ‘yesterday – or centuries before’ – juxtaposed due to their likeness, no difference ; lost sense of time, not sure when Christ died – ‘feels like one day’ – no sense of reason or judgement

‘first chill then stuper then the letting go’ imagery of hypothermia = freezing to death, speaker wants this death – ‘I could not stop for death’ – time frozen

wants to freeze to death – but why want death – because time is death – and once dead – time has frozen and thus freeze to death

she desires death that which is insinuated by the freezing of hypothermia – death is what she wishes to attain and time embodies death, in death, she thus reaches her desired numb senses through the suspension of time/death

STRUCTURE

Iambic tetrameter and trimeter – mirrors the rhythm of their movement, also shows the extension of time, speaker is semi-conscious of the fact that time has

ceased to exist and thereby chooses to continue the illusion of time being present still.

Solidity of rhyme – pararhyme such as ‘me’ ‘immortality’ – ‘away’ ‘civility’ , demonstrates her calm state, harmonious atmosphere, or solidity is what she seeks – invariably soothes her inner chaos

When reflecting upon childhood and ‘grain’ – never indulged in such supposedly inevitable stages in life – all of a sudden, aware of the fact that she lived a meaningless life - lost control in speech, even rhyming patter thus disrupted and no rhyme at all… ‘rain’ ‘sun’ , After there is solid rhyme ‘chill’ ‘tulle” ‘ground’ ‘mound’ – bipolar, fluctuating emotions.

Never experienced things of merriment that institute the evidence of one’s existence – lapse of time is this gap in her life

‘a narrow fellow in the grass’ When looking for safety and control, rhyming represents her attempt to overcome her emotions ‘corn’ ‘morn’ ‘sun’ ‘gone’ – in times of anxiety and fear, we witness the surfacing of instability in her rhyme – it collapses and disintegrates into nothing. ‘rides’ ‘is’  and shivers with ‘zero at the bone’

Atmosphere is tranquil in nature – observing the snake but ‘whip lash’ ‘tighter breathing’ – although no specific time phrases used ‘stooping’ ‘gone’ the impulsive strain and tension of the moment stimulated by the snake is demonstrated

OTHER

Anaphora – ‘we passed’; the repetition of the past tense here, reiterates that the speaker does not have the capacity to recapture these moments/ life experiences. Her anxious tone in speech realizes that she is able to list her life’s regrets with ease and their vast number, they pass by one after the other. Time can be equated to death in the respect that the speaker may never control it to appease her desires.

Personified death as a ‘gentleman’ – time is an abstract form of death, induces pain, time slaughters her in life and in death, death has become the cessation of time and time has subsequently transformed into gentlemen – she is under the shield of eternity – immortal, perpetual

‘My life had stood a loaded gun’ – in contrast to the personification of death, she dehumanizes herself to become a gun… ‘for I have but the power to kill but without the power to die’ - entrapped in her own world and inability to escape forever in some ways are also means of perpetual torment in the deprivation of emotions.