Deat Figurative Language In Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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The poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson dramatizes the speaker’s experience with death by using the personification of death as a way for the reader to visualize her experience. Presented as a gentleman or potential suitor, death comes to pick the speaker up in a carriage. The surprise visit from him “tells the readers that no one can anticipate death” (Lin 2017), which is one of the main ideas of the poem. Death is described as being “kindly” and having “civility”, the speaker emphasizes how death is not as scary as he is often depicted (2, 8). They are joined in the carriage by immortality, which is also personified, and together they take a trip through the town. They pass by children in the school playground, fields of grain, and the setting of the sun. Their trip ends at a house, described as “A Swelling of the Ground”, which symbolizes the speaker’s grave (18). The speaker comments that the passing of time since death seems to be “shorter than the day” when in actuality it had been “centuries” (22, 21). This poem asserts that …show more content…

Repetition of “we passed” is used in the lines 5,9,11 and 12 is used to reiterate that the death and the speaker are on the journey together. Alliteration appears multiple times to capture the reader’s attention to what is being said when describing the “Recess--in the Ring--”, “Gazing grain--” and “Setting Sun--” (10, 11, 12). Dickinson also uses alliteration in lines 18 and 23 with “Gossamer gown” and the “Horses Head”. Personification is used the throughout the entirety of the poem, with death being described as “him” along with some imagery such as “The Dews drew quivering and chill” and “Gazing Grain” (14, 11). The importance of this was to humanize all the experiences the speaker went through so that readers can better understand the message she is trying to

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