Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop For Death" is a good poem that involves thoughts of life and death. This poem gives strange haunting feelings. In the poem Because I Could Not Stop For Death, there is much feeling in the way the poem is read, in signs, and in the use of imagery.
One might agree to the eerie, haunting, if not scary, tone in this Dickinson's poem. Dickinson used controlling adjectives. Such as "slowly" and "passed," to create an image that seems rather placed. For example, " We slowly drove - He knew no haste,""We past the school, were children stove, ""We passed the Setting Sun, " sets a slow, quiet, calm and dreamy atmosphere (5,9,11,12). The poem put ideas on a track heading toward a happy atmosphere.
Be side the use of words "School," "Glazing Grain," " Setting Sun," and " The Ring," much is put together to finish the poem's central idea. Her poem brought to light the life cycle. Unbelievable to many is the cycle of ones life, as symbolized by Dickinson in three stages and then the final stage of eternity. One of the three stages is "School, where children strove (9)" may represent childhood, "The Field of Gazing Grain (11)" may represent maturity, and "Setting Sun (12)" equals old age. In addition to these three stages, the final stage of eternity was symbolized in the last two lines of the poem "The Horses" Heads (23)," " Leading toward Eternity (24).".
Dickinson dresses the scene in such that a mental picture sight, feeling and sound of once life. The imagery begins when Dickinson invites us into the carriage. Death slowly takes us on a sight seeing trip where we see the stages of life. The first site was the "School, where Children stove (9)." It deals with an important symbol, the "Ring." This scene is perhaps the most important. The children at recess do not play but strove. The final scene "We passed the Setting Sun (12)," proved emotional.
