Friday, March 4, 2011

Please give a summary of "Because I could not stop for Death."

This poem is based around a central metaphor which
attempts to domesticate or make less frightening the central human experience of death.
In this poem therefore it is important to realise that death is compared to an
unexpected ride in a carriage. The first stanza opens with death stopping "kindly" for
the speaker and how the carriage drove "slowly" as death "knew no haste." The speaker
comments that she was patient as well, as she had "put away" her leisure and her work
for death's pleasure. The journey of the carriage is mentioned, as they pass the school,
then fields and the setting sun. Finally, the poem ends with the recognition of the
speaker that the carriage had been heading "toward Eternity" all the time, which she
hadn't realised. Clearly the irony of the last stanza concerns the way in which that
life is actually a journey towards death, and the speaker appears to be unprepared for
this central fact:


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Since then--'tis Centuries--and
yet


Feels shorter than the
Day


I first surmised the Horses'
heads


Were towards
Eternity--



This poem then is
rightfully famous for the novel way in which it presents death. Death in this poem is
not something to be feared, but an inevitable occurrence that we must accept and
acknowledge.

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