Blog Assignment #6 - Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson's poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" I believe is such a well written poem that everyone over looks. Emily was a very depressing person and due to her depression her poems expressed her true feelings of lonelyness and sadness. In this particular poem Emily really put the the word death and herself and made them similar. An example such as "And I had put away/My labor and my leisure too,/For his civility" (6-8) really shows Emily's true depression towards life and herself. The quote from her poem really interpreted that she put her life on hold and stopped her own life meaning her labor and leisure for death itself. Emily used personification in order to to give death a different meaning, a meaning almost of a friendship between death and Emily herself. The very first lines of the poem also showed a prime example of Emily's life put into her own work. The lines "Because I could not stop for Death/He kindly stopped for me" (1-2) really put in sense that Emily had a relationship with death. Almost as if Emily was expecting death to come before her. The meaning of this quote really interpreted how death and depression was a part of Emily's life and that even though the time wasnt right for her, death had no problem giving her some time, almost like giving her time to say goodbye. Another quote "We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain/We passed the Setting Sun/Or rather-He passed Us" (11-13) really brought a sense of imagery and Emily's own life being told. This quote really meant that as Emily lived her life as a child where she used to play and have fun that death was always right next to her, watching her. A final example of Emily using her works of poetry to express her own life troubles is "Since then-'tis Centuries-and yet/Feels shorter than the Day" (21-22) that really represented that Emily's days seemed shorter then they used to be. She used that quote as an example to express that her years turned to months, months to weeks, and weeks to days. Emily used a metaphor to express immortality and death similar to each other. Emily's work was and still is amazing pieces of literature and her saddness and depression actually helped her create such amazing pieces of poetry.



http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/stop.html