Could anyone please summarise the poem, “Because I could not stop for death” by Emily Dickenson?
In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “Because I Could not Stop for Death”, the speaker tells us that she has been preoccupied with her day-today activities. She was therefore too busy to stop for anything, as though the hustle and bustle of life ruled out anything new or different. There is a note of self-directed irony or mockery here. In the last stanza, we discover that the speaker is long dead, and that she is speaking from a perspective that has stretched out over a long period of time. She also has given up her commitment to being busy, for she asserts (line 22) that her life in eternity has seemed very short. Death is characterized as gracious, polite, and gentlemanly; the key words in this portrait are “kindly” (line 12 and 13 together indicate movement away from earthly perspective to a more heavenly one. This view is unconventional, for Death in this poem is not accompanied by pain, war, and sickness—Death is not the “grim reaper”—but rather is seen as a quiet, pleasant, and normal for
