Because I Could Not Stop for Death

In the poem, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" the author, Emily Dickinson, depicts a woman, existing currently in the afterlife, who is recalling the details of her last day alive and her transition to the afterlife. Through the poem's rhyme and symbolism Ms. Dickinson tells a story of a woman recalling meeting death, joining him in a carriage ride, passing everyday worldly scenes, briefly stopping at a grave, and finally passing into eternity. The poem explains the graceful transition from life to afterlife for this particular woman.

The rhyme scheme in the poem plays a subtle role in determining what parts of the poem belong together and this helps the reader better understand the poem. For instance, in the first stanza line two, the word "me" rhymes with "civility" which is found in the fourth line of the second stanza (603). Both of these stanzas pertain to Death, who is personified in the poem. The last stanza is also tied into this particular rhyme structure with "eternity", which continues the rhyme. This stanza also includes mention of Death. In these stanzas one, two and six are respectively about meeting Death (dying), Death beginning to take the woman (as symbolized by the Death driving her in the carriage toward a destination), and passing into the afterlife which is alluded to by the horses' heads pointing toward eternity. These stanzas represent the afterlife in some way; the speaker is dead. The remaining stanzas, stanza three, four, and five are not connected by a shared rhyme scheme but they are connected to each other in that they are not a part of the earlier stanzas that have to do with the afterlife. Because these stanzas stand apart it can be assumed they pertain to life, or at least points in time that are tied to her physical existence. For instance, stanza three involves the characters passing a school yard and grain. Stanza four mentions the sun passing the characters and them getting cold, while stanza five has them passing a grave. These stanzas involve a death theme, but the sights they are passing are images of the speaker's time on Earth, unlike the previous stanzas.

Symbolism plays a significant role in understanding the poem. In fact nearly every major revelation in poem leverages symbolism. Death here is spelled with a capital "D" because Death in the poem is a man. Death is a nice man who stops to pick up the speaker, since was she was too busy (with life presumably) to stop for Death. Symbolically, Death picking the speaker up and offering her a carriage ride is the speaker dying. Death drives the carriage slowly and the speaker decries Death as being civil. This could symbolize a graceful transition to the afterlife. In the third stanza, which is the first to depict imagery from the speaker's mortal existence, the characters pass scenes which symbolize portions of the speaker's life. In the carriage the characters "...passed the school, where children strove" and "... fields of gazing grain" (603). The school represents childhood and the fields of grain could symbolize growing up, possibly