Because I could not stop for Death Summary
In this poem, Dickinson’s speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, describing her journey with Death, personified, from life to the afterlife. within the opening stanza, the speaker is just too busy for Death (“Because I couldn’t stop for Death—“), so Death—“kindly”—takes the time to try to what she cannot, and stops for her.
This “civility” that Death exhibits in taking outing for her leads her to offer abreast of those things that had made her so busy—“And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too”—so they will just enjoy this carriage ride (“We slowly drove – He knew no haste”).
In the third stanza we see reminders of the planet that the speaker is passing from, with children playing and fields of grain. Her place within the world shifts between this stanza and therefore the next; within the third stanza, “We passed the Setting Sun—,” but at the opening of the fourth stanza, she corrects this—“Or rather – He passed Us –“—because she has stopped being a lively agent, and is merely now a neighborhood of the landscape.
In this stanza, after the belief of her new place within the world, her death also becomes suddenly very physical, as “The Dews drew quivering and chill—,” and she or he explains that her dress is merely gossamer, and her “Tippet,” a sort of cape usually made out of fur, is “only Tulle.”
After this moment of seeing the coldness of her death, the carriage pauses at her new “House.” the outline of the house—“A Swelling of the Ground—“—makes it clear that this is often no cottage, but instead a grave. Yet they only “pause” at this house, because although it’s ostensibly her home, it’s really only a resting place as she travels to eternity.
The final stanza shows a glimpse of this immortality, made most clear within the first two lines, where she says that although it’s been centuries since she has died, it feels not than each day. it’s not just any day that she compares it to, however—it is that the very day of her death when she saw “the Horses’ Heads” that were pulling her towards this eternity.
Dickinson’s poems deal with death again and again, and it is never quite the same in any poem. In “Because I could not stop for Death—,” we see death personified. He is no frightening, or even intimidating, reaper, but rather a courteous and gentle guide, leading her to eternity. The speaker feels no fear when Death picks her up in his carriage, she just sees it as an act of kindness, as she was too busy to find time for him.
It is this kindness, this individual attention to her—it is emphasized in the first stanza that the carriage holds just the two of them, doubly so because of the internal rhyme in “held” and “ourselves”—that leads the speaker to so easily give up on her life and what it contained. This is explicitly stated, as it is “For His Civility” that she puts away her “labor” and her “leisure,” which is Dickinson using metonymy to represent another alliterative word—her life.
Analysis
Indeed, the next stanza shows that life is not so great, as this quiet, slow carriage ride is contrasted with what she sees as they go. A school scene of children playing, which could be emotional, is instead only an example of the difficulty of life—although the children are playing “At Recess,” the verb she uses is “strove,” emphasizing the labors of existence. The use of anaphora with “We passed” also emphasizes the tiring repetitiveness of mundane routine.
The next stanza moves to present a more conventional vision of death—things become cold and more sinister, the speaker’s dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it quickly becomes clear that though this part of death—the coldness, and the next stanza’s image of the grave as home—may not be ideal, it is worth it, for it leads to the final stanza, which ends with immortality. Additionally, the use of alliteration in this stanza that emphasizes the material trappings—“gossamer” “gown” and “tippet” “tulle”—makes the stanza as a whole less sinister.
That immorality is the goal is hinted at in the first stanza, where “Immortality” is the only other occupant of the carriage, yet it is only in the final stanza that we see that the speaker has obtained it. Time suddenly loses its meaning; hundreds of years feel no different than a day. Because time is gone, the speaker can still feel with relish that moment of realization, that death was not just death, but immortality, for she “surmised the Horses’ Heads/Were toward Eternity –.” By ending with “Eternity –,” the poem itself enacts this eternity, trailing out into the infinite. Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death Because I could not stop for Death
