Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death

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of all people. She ‘could not stop for death’ as none of us really believe we can or that we have the time. Most people die unexpectedly and are not ready to stop everything they have and want to do just to cease living. By riding with death, she fools herself into thinking that she is not dead. She has found immortality by riding along with death. Death does not come quickly. Rather, it arrives with a menacing slowness. She has ridden with him and is now reflecting upon her well-lived years. In this sense, we all ride alongside death as it certainly does follow us everywhere we go. The “horse’s head”(23) refers to the carriage in which they ride, and she now knows that she has been heading towards this eternity and that the only way to eternity is through death, not through living.
The irony in this poem is that the author heroicizes death by the time it is over. Death has become her lifelong friend and the companion that she has always longed ...

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