Emily Dickinson's Collected Poems Summary and

Analysis of "Because I could not stop for Death --"

In this poem, Dickinsons speaker is communicating from beyond the grave, describing her
journey with Death, personified, from life to afterlife. In the opening stanza, the speaker is too
busy for Death (Because I could not stop for Death), so Deathkindlytakes the time to
do what she cannot, and stops for her.
This civility that Death exhibits in taking time out for her leads her to give up on those things
that had made her so busyAnd I had put away/My labor and my leisure tooso they can
just enjoy this carriage ride (We slowly drove He knew no haste).

In the third stanza we see reminders of the world that the speaker is passing from, with children
playing and fields of grain. Her place in the world shifts between this stanza and the next; in the
third stanza, We passed the Setting Sun, but at the opening of the fourth stanza, she corrects
thisOr rather He passed Us because she has stopped being an active agent, and is only
now a part of the landscape.

In this stanza, after the realization of her new place in the world, her death also becomes
suddenly very physical, as The Dews drew quivering and chill, and she explains that her
dress is only gossamer, and her Tippet, a kind 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 description of the houseA Swelling of the Groundmakes it clear that this is no
cottage, but instead a grave. Yet they only pause at this house, because although it is ostensibly
her home, it is really only a resting place as she travels to eternity.

The final stanza shows a glimpse of this immortality, made most clear in the first two lines,
where she says that although it has been centuries since she has died, it feels no longer than a
day. It is not just any day that she compares it to, howeverit is the very day of her death, when
she saw the Horses Heads that were pulling her towards this eternity.

Analysis
Dickinsons 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 herit 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
ourselvesthat 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 wordher life.
Indeed, the next stanza shows the 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 lifealthough 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 deaththings become cold and
more sinister, the speakers dress is not thick enough to warm or protect her. Yet it quickly
becomes clear that though this part of deaththe coldness, and the next stanzas image of the
grave as homemay 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
trappingsgossamer gown and tippet tullemakes 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.