In the poem Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson, there is many different images that Dickson portrays to support her underlying concepts. Beginning with just a pre-scan of this poem we can see that the title has death in it, this sets the mood in our first read through the poem. The most dominant image that we can envision is death, as in a personified character the modern day people can envision. This Grim reaper is not what we normally expect though, he is more of a gentle person that is guiding the speaker to eternity. While the two are in the carriage, the speaker says, “I had put away My labor, and my leisure too,” (Dickinson); this implies past tense which means, from the beginning of the poem, the speaker has been communicating to us after dying, describing her adventure to the afterlife, with death being a personified character. Along with that line implying a past tense,it also does prove that she has died because without labor or leisure there is nothing, so it is a kind of metonymy connected to her life. Another connection that the author makes to death in the “house” that they stopped at, “We paused before a house that seemed A swelling of the ground;” (Dickinson) this house is a grave. These all connect to the central theme of her death because they all connect to death, in different ways, ending of life, burial and journey to eternity. (Both Pictures above represent how death is more of a guide in the poem then the menacing image that we all naturally envision)
