“But it is not the fear, observe, but the contemplation of death; not the instinctive shudder and struggle of self-preservation, but the deliberate measurement of the doom, which are great or sublime in feeling” (John Ruskin). Human beings never stop making efforts to explaining, understanding and exploring the meaning of the death, and death became an important topic in human’s literature. According to the scientific definition “death is the state of a thermodynamic bio-system in which that thermodynamic system cannot obtain non-spontaneously energy from the environment and organize non-spontaneously the energy obtained from the environment” (Nasif Nahle). Which means that all human beings fundamental biological systems are stop working after …show more content…
The poem does not have a perfect rhyme; however, it still has some rhythms making the poem connected. For instance, “Immortality” (line 4) with “Civility” (line 8), “finally” and “Eternity”; they all make the poem has beautiful rhythms and poetic musicality. Dickinson also uses many art techniques; for instance, personification and metaphors, to make the poem more appealing. Dickinson personified “Death” as a gentleman in the poem, which it the most important personification in the poem. Dashes are another literary trope commonly used by Dickinson, in this poem she also uses many dashes. Dashes can make readers’ reader speed slow down. Hence, readers can have more time to consider the meaning of the poem. Besides that, the tempo of the poem also influenced by the use of capital letters for common nouns. The speaker of the poem is a woman who has an unusual trip with death and immortality, at the end of the trip, the woman realizes that death is not the end of the …show more content…
“We paused before a House that seems” (line17 Dickinson). In the third stand, the speaker “passed” (lines 9,11,12) her lifetime on the trip, but the speaker and the death “paused” before an architecture now. The speed of the trip is slow down, and the speaker sees her destination. “A Swelling of the Ground/The roof was scarcely-/The cornice in the ground-”(lines 18-20 Dickinson). According to this description, it is easy to infer that the architecture is a cemetery, which is the destination of the speaker and her new house after she dead. “Since then-/Centuries-and yet/Feels shorter than the day” (Lines 21-22 Dickinson). To the speaker, it makes no difference, whether it is only one day or a thousand years because her body was dead and cannot leave the cemetery forever, but the speaker’s soul is get rid of the limitation of the body and has the eternal life. Compared with the immortality after death, the speaker feels the lifetime is shorter than a day and time is meaningless to her. “I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity-” (lines 23-24 Dickinson). The speaker starts to suspect that the destination of the trip is not the “House”, but immortality. Although, the body of the speaker was buried in the cemetery and stay there forever, her soul can continue the trip, and the direction of the horses’ head is the
In May Miller’s Poem “Death is not Master” the persona explains that death is not the master that will increase the desperation but it is a way to become eternally calm. Many poems on the topic of death explain it as powerful thing that fears the existence of human beings, but Miller’s persona death is a way to achieve eternal serenity. She explains death as something that can end all the worldly tears, desires and tension and transform the human memory into a sculpture which is unaware of tensions. Miller’s persona believes that blocking death will be unfair as it will be a barrier to the everlasting happiness and calmness that lies inside the grave. Miller’s persona is an elaboration of Christian beliefs that death ends all worldly problems
(John Ruskin). Even though, human beings are not able to avoid death, they are making efforts to understanding and explaining it; and death is the timeless topic in literature. The speaker in “Because I could not stop for Death”, treat death as her friend and she faces death peacefully. Death is not fearful because it does not mean the end of life and it is also a part of the natural cycle of the world. Dickinson’s view on death reflects Lao Tzu’s opinions of death, both of them believe that death is the most normal thing in the world and death is not the end of the life; and people ought to treat death as a friend instead of fearing death. Even though Woolf’s attitude to death is not as friendly as Dickinson’s, she also believes that human beings should not fear of death, which is same as Dickinson. A scientific experiment did by Ducan can also support Dickinson’s view on death; the experiment proves that all human beings have souls, and souls will not die with people 's physical body but will leave the body and attain the eternal life. In conclusion, human beings are destined to die, but human’s spirit is able to have the eternal life. Therefore, it is unnecessary to be fear of the death, but welcome it as a friend, when it is
Emily Dickinson is one of the most popular American poets of all time. Her poetry is seen as intense and passionate. Several of her many poems seem to be devoted to death and sadness. No one seems to know the exact connections between actual events in her life and the poetry that she wrote. The reader can see vivid images of Dickinson's ideas of death in several of her poems. Dickinson's use of imagery and symbolism are apparent in several of her death poems, especially in these three: "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain," "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died," and "Because I Could Not Stop for Death."
The speaker in this poem is overwhelmed by all the tasks, she does, which use up all her time; as a result, the speaker wants to relax and have fun in her life. However; it is not possible so the speaker finds death as her last resort. So when Death finally comes; she gladly enters his “carriage“ as she was weary of her daily life. When they arrive at her final resting place, the burial ground, she realizes it has been centuries since her death and the horses have been walking to eternity. This tells the reader Emily Dickinson believes in afterlife, and is probably looking forward to it.
“Death, the end of life: the time when someone or something dies” (Merriam-Webster, 2014). The definition of death is quite simple, the end of life is inescapable. I chose to write about death and impermanence because it is something we all must inevitably face. People often deal with death in a number of different ways. Although it is something that we must eventually face, it can be hard to come to terms with because the idea can be hard to grasp. Some of us fear it, others are able to accept it, either way we all must eventually face it. In this essay I will look at two different literary works about death and impermanence and compare and contrast the different elements of the point of view, theme, setting, and symbolism. The comparison of these particular works will offer a deeper look into words written by the authors and the feelings that they experiencing at that particular time.
Dickinson sets the slow pace and intimate feel of her poem almost immediately encouraging closeness between death, the narrator and the reader. In the first stanza, Dickinson gave death a human embodiment as carriage driver and a gentle quality to his character. Together the narrator and death begin a journey alone within the carriage. The second stanza is where Dickinson begins to cultivate the slow feel of this poem by stating, “We slowly drove—He knew no haste” (Dickinson line 5) and when coupled with the following lines “And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too” (Dickinson lines 6-7) the poem begins to take on its true meaning, this poem is the description of the narrators funeral procession.
Dickinson 's poem uses poetic devices of personification to represent death, she represents death as if it were a living being. Dickinson 's capitalization of the word “DEATH”, causes us to see death as a name, in turn it becomes noun, a person, and a being, rather than what it truly is, which is the culminating even of human life. The most notable use of this, is seen in the very first few lines of the poem when Dickinson says “Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me”. In her poem Dickinson makes death her companion, as it is the person who is accompanying her to her grave. She states that death kindly stopped for her and she even goes as far as to give death the human ability to stop and pick her up. The occasion of death through Dickinson use of personification makes it seem like an interaction between two living beings and as a result the poem takes on a thoughtful and light hearted tone. The humanization of death makes the experience more acceptable and less strange, death takes on a known, familiar, recognizable form which in turn makes the experience more relatable. As the poem
Dickinson uses many ways to get her point across. She uses metaphors, imagery, and personification. Throughout her poem she refers to death as he, giving him a human form so people could look at it differently. She also uses metaphors, like setting sun, grazing grain, and children to represent different stages of life. The rhythm also sets the mood of the poem. Since it has a darker feeling to it, readers can get the right feeling and mood about her poem to understand it better.
The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.
...ltimate love affair with Death. In the final lines of this poem Dickinson states, “I first surmised the Horses' Heads, Were toward Eternity.” These final lines bring the poem full circle in the way they return the reader back to the first stanza, when Death shows up with his carriage. The horses drew the carriage that takes the speaker to the eternal life, she alluded to within the first lines.
Imagery is a big component to most works of poetry. Authors strive to achieve a certain image for the reader to paint in their mind. Dickinson tries to paint a picture of ?death? in her own words. Thomas A. Johnson, an interpretive author of Dickinson's work, says that ?In 1863 Death came into full statue as a person. ?Because I could not stop for Death? is a superlative achievement wherein Death becomes one of the greatest characters of literature? (Johnson). Dickinson's picture to the audience is created by making ?Death? an actual character in the poem. By her constantly calling death either ?his? or ?he,? she denotes a specific person and gender. Dickinson also compares ?Death? to having the same human qualities as the other character in the poem. She has ?Death? physically arriving and taking the other character in the carriage with him. In the poem, Dickinson shows the reader her interpretation of what this person is going through as they are dying and being taken away by ?Death?. Dickinson gives images such as ?The Dews drew quivering and chill --? and ?A Swelling of the Ground --? (14, 18). In both of these lines, Dickinson has the reader conjure up subtle images of death. The ?quivering an chill? brings to the reader's mind of death being ...
For Dickinson, on the contrary, death is not something unreal. As the author has written "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me..." After reading these two lines the reader "imagines the picture of Death being a human which joins the author during the ride" . Dickinson tries to portray the characteristics of death in the poem. Stating that there is eternity after death, the author alludes both the possibility of the life after death and absolute zero-ness of it. Unlike Plath, Dickinson not only talks about the notion of death, but personalizes it. The reader feels that the author in fact...
To begin with the poem flows very smoothly and evenly throughout. This is because of the perfect iambic meter. Iambic meter, with its emphasis on the second syllable and the division of the lines it creates, gives the poem a feeling that life flows into death without trouble. Lines one and three both have eight syllables and the second and fourth lines have six syllables. This shows that Dickinson went out of her way to make the poem feel this way and the smooth transition of lines contrasts the overall lack of full rhyme and the dashes the make it seem choppy. The en dashes, which Dickinson is known for doing throughout her poems, are used to force the reader to stop in weird place and take pauses in awkward spots. Dickinson starts off with a cold dull and blunt entrance to the poem with the line “I heard a fly buzz -- when I died --” (Baskett 340). The first en dash separates the two main topics in the poem, the transition from life to death and the fly. In the first stanza there are only four dashes as well, proposing that the person has little interference compared to the last stanza which is preceded by the introduction of the fly “There interposed a Fly –“ (12) . Once the fly interrupts there are suddenly substantially more dashes going from three to seven because the fly has entered and this gives a uneasy feeling of the world around slowly flickering
There are three stages of life that are presented very well in the poem “Because I could not stop for Death.” According to Dickinson the first stage of life is “We passed the school, where Children strove” (Dickinson 219). This means that the children are still young, innocent and have yet to mature. The second stage that describes the circle of life presented by Dickinson is “We passed the Field of Gazing Grain-“ (Dickinson 219). This presents the “grains” as humans who are maturing and are now in the presence of adulthood. The last stage of life presented is “We passed the Setting Sun-“ (Dickinson 219). As the sun sets it disappears and the moon is shining along with the stars, just like that, when the death occurs a person disappears and becomes one of the stars and starts shining from above as they have gone to heaven. This can also be interconnected with religion, as in many cultures it is believed that when a person dies, they become one of the stars and shine down upon us, watching us like a guardian angel. The people who have reached darkness is not standing next to god in heaven as they have reached the end of their life cycle. Humans forget that slowly but gradually they are maturing and before it is noticed death is at our doorstep, and Dickinson predicts this in her
In Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” Dickinson portrays what it is like to go through the process of dying. According to Mark Spencer of the Explicator, the speaker portrays death as a two-step process. It is said that this particular poem makes more sense if read from the perspective that reconciliation with God is a delayed process. In this poem the speaker has ended their existence on earth but have yet to reach the final step. The horses are pulling the carriage “toward Eternity” which suggests that the final step has yet to be reached. The speaker says that “Centuries” feel “Shorter than the day” implying that although an end will come, it will not come soon. Although the end is said not to come soon, it will seem like nothing to those who have passed. A grave site is compared to a house when the carriage passes a “Swelling in the ground”, because indeed the speaker will stay in this home until her final day comes. The speaker then becomes “quivering and chill” wearing her thin flimsy clothing but then realizes that the clothing has become appropriate for what is to come. The speaker indicates that the carriage is only pausing because the current state she is in is only temporary (Spence). It is said that the speaker looks death in the eye and escapes ...