Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson's strong uses of personification contribute immensely to the enjoyment of their poetry. In both poems, the poets turn an inanimate force into a humanlike character. The personified characters in each poem play a contrasting but friendly role. While the wind in "The Night-Wind- is enticing and death in "Because I could not stop for Death- is guiding, the poets are relaying the same message of seize the day. Bronte, however, describes death as final, while Dickinson describes death as the beginning of a new journey.
In "The Night-Wind- Bronte uses personification to describe the wind as breathing, whispering, sighing sweetly and as a childhood friend. Bronte has humanized the wind in such a way the narrator feels the wind tempting and enticing her to go outside:.
I said, "Go, gentle singer,.
Thy wooing voice is kind,.
But do not think its music.
Has power to reach my mind.
The narrator is struggling to resist the winds constant coaxing.
Bronte further personifies the wind by referring to it as "the wanderer- who would not leave the narrator alone while playing on the fact they have been companions since childhood: "Have we not been from childhood friends? Have I not loved thee long?- (29-30). This indicates an existing bond of intimacy and trust between the wind and the speaker. The wind points out the narrator will have time to be alone once she is dead:.
"And when thy heart is laid at rest.
Beneath the church-yard stone.
I shall have time enough to mourn.
And thou to be alone."" (33-36).
Bronte concludes her poem with the message of seizing the moment as death is final.
In the second poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death-, Emily Dickinson personifies deaths role as a calm and patient gentleman. The speaker characterizes deaths behaviour and personality in her description of the way they moved: "We slowly drove "he knew no haste- (5). Death was in no hurry acting as a courteous escort.