Because I Could Not Stop For Death - Example Essay #1

Discuss ways in which Dickinson presents time in “Because I could not stop for death”

Throughout the various poems in Emily Dickinson’s collection we can see the constant reference to time and the different effects that the length of time has one her. We can see how the pain that is present in her life causes time to become elongated.  An example of this would be in; “I heard a fly buzz” we see how Dickinson become breathless as she wishes for time to speed up and for God to save her from the “fly”, and then it is shown again in; “After great pain, a formal feeling comes-“ in which we see that it is simply only a matter of time before the pain comes again, we see her struggle to break the cycle and to stop time catching up with her. However, the poem that most effectively presents time is in, “Because I could not stop for Death.” We can see how when she is in the company of death she does not wish for the time to speed away but instead we see that she wishes for him to take his time, “We slowly drove- -He knew no haste.”

In the poem; “I could not stop for Death” we are shown the figure of death as a man on horse back coming to collect Dickinson’s in a carriage before he carries her off to death. In this poem the idea of the pain of her life elongating time is really prominent. We are given the image that “Since then—‘tis Centuries—and yet/ Feels shorter than they Day.” This highlights that the centuries that she have been death feel shorter that the one of the days that she spent waiting for death to arrive. This again illustrates the extension of time and the increase of the pain that she feels as time goes on. We see how she does not wish for him to rush, she wants to take in the sights of her last day alive, which is different to many of her other poems as we generally see how she is impatient in waiting for death and how she longs for him to hurry to her. We see how they “passed the School; where Children strove” and then also they “passed the Fields of grazing Grain,” these are younger items, and then the poem progresses to “the setting sun,” which indicates the end, the sun going down, darkness will be closing in and the day is almost over. This could be interpreted as the circle of life, if the day was split into sections of life, we see how at they start of their journey the see the young ones, whose’ lives have just began, to as the day comes to a close we see how she is nearing death, her life comes to an end just as the day does. 

We can also see how her death is not as instant as the figure of death arriving, we see how they take a long, even romantic, ride in his carriage where they see that various different things of natural beauty, but we see how she is not concerned at the fact that she is not dying immediately, she is willing to spend time with death. This gives us the impression that death is like a gentleman caller that comes to visit her and take her on long carriage rides in the countryside. She longs for everything else to speed up, but now that she has death within her sights she is willing to wait and allow him to take his time. This then contrasts with the poem; “I heard a Fly buzz- when I died-“ in this poem we see how she is desperate for God to hurry and take her away to death, because she fears that the “Fly”, who represents the devil will take her away to hell. We see her panic in this poem by the enjambment between the lines, which not only gives us the image of Dickinson being breathless, but also if the poem is read allowed, the reader becomes breathless too, again reflecting her feelings through to the reader.

The structure of the poem is set out with an iambic tetra and trimeter, which for the reader give the effect of ‘did-dum’, when they are reading, this reflects the image of death being in the carriage and the meter gives the effect of the horses hooves. There is also no solid rhyme within this poem, only Para rhyme, which gives the poems the feeling that it is missing something that the rhyme is meant to be there but she is just unable to rhyme. This could be for many reasons, she is excited by the throughout death so is so caught up with the story of this that she is able to rhyme, or that she fears that even though she will have what she has always wanted, the freedom of death, will she end up in heaven or hell and this is what she fears more that anything. The fear of being stuck forever in darkness is also show in “I heard a Fly buzz- when I died-“, in which we see her fear of the fly capturing her, “I could not see to see-“, she fears living in the endless darkness. We also see that the us of tetra and tri, again makes the lines look as if they are missing something, the use of one short sentence followed by one long, cuts the reader short and makes the poem feel awkward to read allowed, which could reflect the awkward nature of her life.