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The Life and Death Cycle

Introduction 

Personification has been used to belittle and undercut death because Dickinson and Donne believe humanity will ultimately be victorious over it thanks to the immortality of the soul. A vibrant and vivid description of death where a female speaker narrates the story of how death visited her, which was personified by a “kindly” gentleman and taken for a ride in the gentleman’s carriage. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is one of the author’s most adored poems and was composed in 1863. The authors of the poem are Emily Dickinson and John Donne, who made two convincing attempts at determining the role of death and the several takes to this issue. “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” by Emily Dickinson and “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne are two poems that have incompatible perspectives on one problem. Death is bestowed as an unknown, consoling light.

As presented by the authors in the poem, death can be debated as to whether it is indeed consoling or whether it is disconcerting. On the one hand, it seems to console; indeed, death’s personification is expressed as acting with “civility.” While “Death” doesn’t pause or speak on the other hand. It proceeds inevitably and relentlessly, leading the speaker to her death not considering her readiness. 

Dickinson describes death as a call to the relater, according to which it leads her to her perpetual grave. On the other side, Donne criticizes death from various angles, terming it as a slave who doesn’t have power over the narrator. Both authors picture death in a way that is contrary to the famous beliefs handing it over as, cruel, supreme, powerful or harsh. They are not scared of presenting their viewpoints towards the end, but they don’t insist that their viewpoints are accurate. 

  Personification is used to belittle and undercut death because Dickinson and Donne believe humanity will ultimately be victorious over it thanks to the soul's immortality. Both authors present death is conflicting as to whether it is indeed comforting or not (Gilbert et al., 2020). The poem's tone of matter-of-fact underplays the imaginary nature of what is actually taking place, quickly establishing the journey as something out of the speaker’s power. It’s not distinct whether the speaker is dead already or moving towards death. Nonetheless, her death is accorded as something inescapable, natural and strange. 

The poems first lines portray this. The speaker could not “stop for Death” – and many people would not – yet “Death” purposes to stop her. “Death” here is portrayed as some gentleman who was “kindly” pausing his carriage to allow the speaker to climb in. It presents a particular console, or at least affirmation of, dying on the speaker’s part even when what is entailed in this process remains unknown (Griffith, 2015). Included in the carriage is “immortality”. It’s not vivid whether this is an abstract or another personified feature. But its presence speaks on one of humanity’s biggest questions: What happens to individuals when they die? 

“Immortality” is uncertain here. The presence of immorality could affirm the Christian belief about life after death – which somehow runs through Dickinson’s poem. Or indifference, “immortality” could be said to be ironic, insinuating the eternal nothingness that lives in death. Nonetheless, this is the permanent inevitability of “Death” that he is “no haste”. The carriage comes to a pause by a school’s fields and maybe even the speaker’s graveyard (stanza five). These stages show the various life stages, beginning from childhood and continuing – like the journey – to the eventual destination, an inevitable process. 

To highlight the sense of wonder around death's mystery in the poem, the final stanza is filled with contradiction and ambiguity. The speaker highlights how the carriage proceeded past the sights “centuries” ago, yet the time that has gone by also seems to be “shorter than a Day.” In eternity in general, hundreds of years may feel like a glitch on the periscope. This contradiction therefore shows the strain in imagining eternal life. Life is dignified by time, leading through various stages as individuals age; people get a sense about their life stories as they grow old. Yet in death, all perceptions do not exist. Unless, there is life after death, a perception that the poem appears open to but indecisive about. 

Personification is used to belittle and undercut death because Dickinson and Donne believe humanity will ultimately be victorious over it thanks to the soul's immortality. While the initial two stanzas introduce the journey itself, from the third stanza, the speaker gets aware of the environment in the surroundings. The first stop along the way is in a school, “where children strove/ at Recess – in the Ring” (Darlington, 1987). This imagery of children playing is crucial, as it symbolizes the process of life even after the speaker is no longer living to witness it. The verb “strove” portrays effort by humans, describing how individuals strive to live even with the knowledge that death is inevitable. 

The children play in a “ring” which is a circular nature reflecting on the cycle of life and death. Later, the speaker’s travelling takes her by a field. While the sun is going down – showing her death – the “Gazing Grain” appears to be growing firm. This is a representation of life after death. Crops are harvested yearly (showing death) and then they are later regrown or replanted, validating the change from life to death and back to life again. In the last stanza, the speaker appears to view her own grave. There is a sense that death’s reality has arrived – and that she will no longer be alive to see crops growing or children playing. Yet because of the various sights mentioned before, her grave visit doesn’t feel important as it is expected. That means that the speaker herself will soon be dead, but that will not stop the other things from moving on. Perhaps, her death even creates room for the continuation of life – for the children to “strive” just as harvested crops make way for new plants. 

Conclusion 

As seen from the poem's analysis, death is bestowed as a consoling light that is unknown. Death has been described as a call to the narrator in the poem. As the poem travels, so does her life. The speaker continually moves to her death, that appears as a gentleman with a carriage. The gentleman allows the speaker to climb in, and the journey begins. Different stops along the journey signify the cycle of life and death. Eventually, the speaker stops at her gravesite and, indeed, a comforting light. Even though the speaker dies, life continues with other things, even thriving in her absence. 

Works Cited

Darlington, Kathleen. "God's amputated right hand: elegy and Dickinson's search for an integrated universe." (1987).

Gilbert, Sandra M., and Susan Gubar. "16. A Woman—White: Emily Dickinson’s Yarn of Pearl." The Madwoman in the Attic. Yale University Press, 2020. 581-650.

Griffith, Clark. Long Shadow: Emily Dickinson's Tragic Poetry. Princeton University Press, 2015.