Because I Could Not Stop For Death Essay

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Two great American poets, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson often chose to write about the theme of death in their literary works. The pair reportedly suffered from depression and anxiety that seemingly found its release in poetry. Frost and Dickinson offer differing creative techniques in order to compose a unique portrayal of death through their poems “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Because I could not stop for Death.”
Emily Dickinson’s “Because I could not stop for Death” is written in alternating iambic meter and iambic tetrameter, with near rhyme occasionally employed in the second and fourth lines. Regular rhyme occurs sporadically and unexpectedly in its spatial distancing. There is ample punctuation throughout the poem, especially at the end of each line, which contributes to making the poem more dramatic. The dash in the stanza’s concluding line compels the reader to pause before entering into the phrase with a heaviness that suggests the grave’s finality.
“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost consists of four nearly identical constructed stanzas, with each stanza opening with a couplet. Each line is …show more content…

The first option is quite peaceful. In the line "As we pass the school, where children strove," the writer is using the children’s activities in the schoolyard to characterize an eternity that would be a haven of happiness (Dickinson 9). It is clear to see how the speaker receives this image from young children, because they are so full of cheerful qualities. The third stanza is allowing the speaker to see the various stages of her life. The “setting of the sun” appears to point towards maturity while approaching the end of life (Dickinson 12). In this third stanza she uses the word “passed” three times to show the passage of time, and how quickly it goes by from the innocence of youth, to maturity, and eventually to our own

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