Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Question 1

Because I Could Not Stop For Death

Answer 1

Emily Dickinson

Published posthumously

Question 2

Emily Dickinson

Answer 2

1830-1886, Suffered from ill-health and depression
Spent much of adult life caring for her chronically ill mother, wrote poetry in secret
Consistant themes of the ‘deepening menace’ of death, then immortality, one followed on by the other without the intervention of guilt
Praised for use of structure and syntax, punctuation, unconventional capitalisation and lineation

Question 3

Form and structure

Answer 3

Ballad stanza
Alternating tetrameter and tri-meter
Rhyming second and fourth lines in quatrains
This is a melodic form seen in gyms and folk songs
Most of Dickinson’s poems fit with the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas

Question 4

Themes

Answer 4

Death
Immortality
Eternity/Time

Question 5

Immortality

Answer 5

Immortality is employed ironically, not to suggest everlasting life, but everlasting death

Question 6

Death

Answer 6

33 of Dickinson’s acquaintances die between 1851-1854
Personified
Attempts to visualise a fearlessness for death, devoid of the ubiquitous grim-reaper
Capitalisation
Use of personal pronoun

Question 7

Eternity/Time

Answer 7

Life is short and Death is long - Never ending

Viewed from eternity as a fond memory

Question 8

Speaker

Answer 8

Deceased speaker used to recount the memory of the journey from life, beyond death and on to eternity

Question 9

Opening:

Because I could not stop for death

Answer 9

The subordinating conjunction ‘Because’ provides an idea of being interrupted
Provides an explanation
‘I could not stop for death’

Question 10

“Slowly drove”

Answer 10

Internal rhyming
followed by insistent dash
Punctuation, Lexis and sound to replicate time passing
Open vowel sounds literally slow the speaker down

Question 11

Idiosyncratic use of dashes

Answer 11

Initially they serve to cause the reader an idea of the interruption
However they are also used to make small corrections
“Just ourselves - And immortality”

Question 12

“We passed..
…
We passed”

Answer 12

Anaphora carries the reader forward, whilst simultaneously causing us to look back
The carriage occupants are not merely passing a motley collection of scenes, they are passing out of life—reaching the high afternoon of life, or maturity.

Question 13

Stanza 3

Answer 13

Where the journey starts to become difficult
This is highlighted by change in rhythm
Conflict in the lines and shift of tone

Question 14

“Children strove”

Answer 14

Children struggling vigorously are ignorant to the surmise of death

Question 15

“Children strove” –> “Fields of Grazing Grain”

Answer 15

Contrast
Grain represents maturity
There is intimation of harvest and perhaps, in its gaze, nature’s indifference to a universal process

Question 16

“Setting Sun”

Answer 16

Sibilant metaphor for death
followed by a hyphen serving as a pause for correction
“He passed us”
Again personal pronoun personifying death

Question 17

“Dews Drew”

Answer 17

Change of tone and mood
internal rhyme
suggests the sinister action of cold seeping into the clothing of the persona
Warmth of the sun no longer felt, as its set

Question 18

“For only Gossamer, my gown -

My Tippet - Only Tulle -“

Answer 18

Very thin gown
paradoxically inappropriately dress for the cold afterlife
19th century readers would associate a ‘Tippet’ with the cold, as usually made from fur
Ironically this one is “Tulle”
Overall this image suggest the speaker’s regret or recognition that they were unprepared

Question 19

Stanza 4

Answer 19

Switches the iambic ti-meter 1st & 4th line
Iambic tetrameter 2nd & 3rd lines
Coinsides with the change in mood/tone

Question 20

“We pause”

Answer 20

Contrasts the passing, however it is not the final destination as it’s just a “pause” not an end
Pause allows reader to take in the details of the resting place

Question 21

“A House that seemed

A Swelling of the Ground - “

Answer 21

Very gothic image

Suggestions of a grave and a burial

Question 22

“of the Ground -
…
in the Ground -“

Answer 22

The repetition of ‘ground’ as a substitution for alternate half-rhyme seen in the previous stanza, makes the image more emphatic and emotive

Question 23

“Since then - ‘tis Centuries”

Answer 23

Final stanza provides paradoxical, and surprising, revelation that this experience is recounted after Centruries

Question 24

“‘tis Centruries - and yet

Feels shorter than the Day”

Answer 24

Therefore, from ‘Eternity’, itself an immeasurable concept, the speaker suggest the brevity of existence

Question 25

Dickinson and the predictability of life

Answer 25

Through the use of time and the central metaphor of the journey with Death, Dickinson uses a uniform quatrain structure to perhaps suggest the predictability of life, diced by events common to all of us leading, eventually to death

Question 26

Changes in the metre

Answer 26

When the metre is regular, things are suggested as simply passing from on to the next. However when the speaker come to realise something, there is a shift in the rhythm
For example in the last line when there is a change from Iambic to trochaic provision a contrast between what has been predictable and knowable

Question 27

Dickinson and religion

Answer 27

The fact that the persona can comment from this endless moment, “Centuries” later, proves her religious beliefs in life after death, when mortal souls become immortal, retaining their conscious thoughtfulness