When someone dies, is the experience frightening or peaceful? One can argue that it is not death that is scary; it is the fact that it is unknown. Emily Dickinson is known for her poems on death. The poem Because I could not stop for Death argues on this topic. According to Dickinson, death is a peaceful experience. She emphasises this theme with the use of style, characters, and imagery.

Emily Dickinson uses tender diction, and repetition to emphasise the theme of death being a peaceful experience. In the poem, the reader is continuously bombarded with the peaceful vocabulary. Words such as “kindly,” “slowly,” “civility,” “setting sun” and others are used to make the tone quite mild and smooth. These words provide encouragement to the previously established image in the readers mind. This is significant because it helps emphasize the theme even more. Next, Emily Dickinson uses repetition in her work to help support the theme. She constantly repeats the word “We,” that symbolises the fact that she1 and death are together, with no pain. If there were some sort of tension between the personified death, and the speaker, Emily Dickinson would have used a word that shows separation between the two distinct characters. By using the style of diction and repetition Emily Dickinson supports her theme.

There are two (and a minor one)2 major characters in the poem that all share the show the element of peace. The kind characteristics of the speaker, death and the horses’ highlight the theme. From the line “I had put away My labour and my leisure too,” one can understand that the she has wilfully given up her life. This shows the relaxed and ready she is to accept death, which relates back to the theme of the experience of being relaxing. Also, the personified death has a goodwill personality. Words like “civility” and “kindly” are used to describe this character. This is one of the more important characters because the message of the poem reflects on this personality of this character. Emily Dickinson makes sure that this character has a kind behaviour. The characters are quite important to the poem, and Emily uses them to amplify her theme.

The over all imagery reflects one the theme as well. The main image, comes in ones mind during the third stanza. This stanza reflects the entire life of the speaker. The first two lines reflects her life as a young girl in school. The next line echo her working age (at the farm), and the last line of this stanza suggests the coming of her age. The main image seen is a carriage traveling on a long road during a sunset. This image is quite important, because it again shows the element of peace full and calmness. This image directly relates to the theme. The reader know that the final destination of the road is the gave; yet the road and the trip there is peaceful. This imagery is the main element that emphasises the entire theme of the civilly of death.

The reader can understand that through the use of style, characters, and image Dickinson highlights the theme of the non-violent nature of death. Her style uses the help of kind diction, and repetition, her choice of characters, and the use of imagery intensifies the theme. Although Dickinson is commonly known for her poetry about death, this one is a unique one. Her irony3 of death being peaceful is quite element. Over all Dickinson is an amazing writer, and in this poem she has done some of her very best work.

Notes:
1: I wrote ‘she’ because the speaker is a girl. This is proven in the forth stanza where Dickinson states “My tippet only tulle.” A tippet is a scarf that only women wear.

2: The other minor characters are the horses. They are important to the poem but not as much as the speaker or death.

3: this irony is known as situational irony because the reader expects death to be hard and painful, yet Dickinson thinks otherwise (in this poem)