Death and Ambiguity

Dickinson’s poem that starts “Because I could not stop for Death-” displays some certainties, but also a lot of ambiguity.  Some certainty includes the way Dickinson characterizes Death and the overall journey toward eternity.  The largest source of ambiguity in the poem is who/where the narrator is.  

On one hand, Dickinson narrates from the perspective of a human who sees death everywhere and is calmly waiting.  This person sees death on the playground, in adulthood, in their old age, and in graveyards/at funerals.  At the end, this person faces death directly.  Here, they have passed through the stages of life (youth, adulthood, old age) and are at eternity, meaning it is finally their time after seeing death from a distance for so long.  It is a subtle ending that in essence portrays a simple death.  This is a peaceful and calm way to read the poem.

On the other hand, the narrator could be a passenger in the carriage with death.  The way death is described illustrates the narrator’s knowledge of death. The narrator describes death as “[knowing] no haste” and “[civil]”. Here, Death is personified, giving the illusion that the narrator knows Death personally.  How could someone who has seen death, but never met him know describe him like this?  This narrator has also seen death everywhere.  In this case, the carriage has picked people up in the schoolyard, the fields, and the setting sun.  Again, each of these represent a phase in life.  Each one is referenced in the third stanza.  The schoolyard represents a child dying.  The fields represent the people who are at a stage where they work.  Therefore, these people are most likely adults.  Finally, they pass the setting sun which represents old age. Following this, the next stanza describes clothing which is used to represent a funeral.  From here, eternity is described.  This way of viewing the poem and the narrator is less peaceful than the first.  Because the narrator knows death personally, it might be assumed they are dead and now they are watching more people die.  The way the narrator describes each phase of life could be seen as a pattern like they are viewing the cycle repeatedly.  This is darker and almost hopeless.  

The pacing with the dashes adds a lot to the second way I discussed.  It breaks it up into short chunks as if the narrator has spoken about it again and again.  For example, in the third stanza, Dickinson describes three phases of life with little description of each.  The alliteration is also significant to the poem.  When Dickinson uses alliteration she uses it in pairs.  For example, “grazing grain,” “setting sun,” and “my labor and my leisure.”  The repetition of the sounds could add evidence to the narrator being a passenger because of the repetition of picking up dead people.  It could also be a clue to the ambiguity.  In the last example specifically, (“my labor and my leisure”) the narrator is describing two things that are related like how both ways of viewing the narrator are related to the poem.  

Overall, the ambiguity in this poem allows the reader to view the narrator in a different way, creating their own idea of the tone and mood. This could impact the message the reader takes away about death.  Due to the ambiguity neither is right or wrong allowing both types of readers to enjoy the poem.


Side note: I apologize for the length- I wanted to make sure the organization made sense and I could not see how this would work in three paragraphs.