Because I Could Not Stop For Death Essay

The pivot theme of the poem is the inevitability of meeting death. Thus, despite the fact that the main character “could not stop for Death,” “he kindly stopped” for her (lines 1-2). These lines demonstrate the impossibility of escaping death just as the impossibility of appointing a convenient time for meeting it. In her poem, Dickinson personifies death endowing it of typically human qualities. For example, the phrase “he knew no haste” depicts death as a sensitive and sympathetic man who does not want to press the main character excessively realizing the delicate nature of the situation (line 5). The image of death undergoes some transformation throughout this short poem. Thus, while the first impression that Death makes is utterly positive,

Thus, for example, the boy and his father perceive the car incident each from his own perspective. The boy has a fairly vague idea of death at his age so his principal fears are centered on being punished and experiencing pain. These two fears make him paralyzed so that he feels “powerless to act” (p. 6). The father’s fears are, on the contrary, rooted in his helplessness and his anticipation of the worst outcomes what makes him do everything possible to prevent the tragedy. Most importantly, after the incident is over, the father is mainly shocked because of his seeing his son “hurtling to his death inches from him, while the son is most interested in the fact that he escaped punishment (p. 9). When the boy grows up, he has to meet a different face of death, i.e. the one that “gradually rotted” his father’s organism and that made his life so unbearable that his relatives were praying for his end. Thus, the story shows that, in the course of time, death becomes less abstract for it is associated with the particular feelings such as despair and the grieving of