Death is usually seen as the cosmic harbinger of bad news; a stereotypical villain that ends the happiness of life. Contrary to that popular characterization, in Emily Dickinson’s “I Could Not Stop for Death,” Death is a gentlemanly character. The speaker peacefully resigns to Death. On the other hand, in “Death Be Not Proud,” John Donne’s speaker is hostile toward Death. His speaker’s view of Death contradicts Donne’s religion. Christianity sees Death as a intrument of God. Death is a member of the four horsemen that God unleashes in Revelations. , Donne’s speaker is not convincing in his argument of Death as a villain because he does not view Death as God’s work, or as the means to a Christian afterlife. Dickinson’s speaker is much more convincing, considering her Bohemian outlook on Death. A Bohemian philosophy is the idea of breaking social norms and having unorthodox beliefs. Dickinson’s speaker’s Bohemian ideals can be seen through an explication of “Because I Could Not Stop For Death.”
Death’s meaning in Dickinson’s poem has been debated by scholars and widely varies. For instance, some scholars have considered Death as a gentle but unavoidable lover. Some have thought of Death as a funeral director (Abbott 141) or even a representation of God (Hoepfner 96). Death can also be viewed as the peaceful means to an eternity of rest that the speaker seeks.
In “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, Dickinson’s speaker views Death as an intimate friend. She refers to Death as “kindly” (Dickinson 2) stopping for her alongside life’s road in a carriage. Already, her acceptance of her fate and willingness to go with Death on friendly terms establishes sympathy with Death. She goes on to say that Death “knew no haste” (5). It is a leisurely ride toward the speaker’s death, which might suggest that she has known Death all along. The belief that as soon as humans are born that they begin to die, resonates in this line. Death is always with the speaker, and using a Bohemian lens, Death provides the speaker comfort on their gentle ride.
In the third stanza, the speaker passes children playing, “in the Ring” (10), which would indicate the children were playing “Ring Around the Rosy.” The significance of the children’s rhyme is that it revolves around death. It is originally about the bubonic plague. It makes sense that Dickinson would include the plague reference because it fits with her theme of life’s stages in the stanza. For instance, the grain field gives the impression that harvest season is near and the grain will soon be cut down by Death’s scythe. Later in the stanza, the setting sun is taken by the night. Dickinson could be suggesting that, from children’s rhymes to setting suns, Death surrounds everyone in all stages of life.
Eternity in Dickinson’s poem goes against the Christian view of an afterlife eternity. Instead, she seems to suggest that Death is the only eternity. Throughout the poem, the speaker is willing to treat Death as a friend rather than a foe. She presents a very unorthodox, relaxed view towards Death.
Her time is running out in the sixth stanza. The sun on her life is setting as she and Death “paused before a House that seemed/ A swelling of the ground” (17-18). This has been widely discussed in the literary world as the speaker’s grave (Frank 82), and it isn’t hard to imagine. She comments on the irony of her life always being on the path of her death when saying, “Since then- ‘Tis Centuries- and yet/ Feels shorter than the Day/ I first surmised the Horses’ Heads/ Were towards Eternity-“ (Dickinson 21-24). She is describing the longevity of life; yet at the end of life, it feels quite short. She has always been pointed towards death, yet it is only on the edge of death that she finally realizes it. In line 4, Immortality is along for the ride with Death too. Immortality aids the thought that Death is eternal. The speaker is saying that there are no pearly gates, but instead, a peaceful eternity in a grave. It goes against the view of Death as a villain and provides an acceptance of Death as necessary for eternal peace. Plainly, Death is the end to life and in the speaker’s acknowledgment, she is provided with peace of mind.
There is a stark difference between Dickinson’s poem and John Donne’s view in “Death Be Not Proud.” Donne, being a preacher, strongly believed in the Christian view of eternal life. As such, Donne’s speaker tries to overcome Death to get eternal life. Yet, Death is the means to the Christian afterlife. Death is an essential means to the end. Donne’s speaker curses Death, instead of realizing that Death is indispensable. The speaker is fully convinced that Death is a worthless villain, yet it is not a convincing argument considering the Christian ideals present in the poem.
In the first two lines of “Death Be Not Proud”, Donne’s speaker challenges Death’s pride, might, and influence. These two lines establish the aggressive tone. He goes on to assert that he is still living and Death cannot yet claim him (Donne 4). By struggling against Death, the speaker is reinforcing Death as the enemy and that he will not stop fighting against Death until the bitter end.
In lines five and six, the speaker categorizes rest and sleep as forms of death. By saying that rest and sleep provide “much pleasure”, the speaker creates a powerful contradiction (5). If rest and sleep are pleasurable and “pictures” of Death, Death too must be pleasurable (6). So, the speaker makes the concession that Death can be a relief, yet he continues to desperately try to diminish Death’s effectiveness. Donne might have put these lines in to confirm the uncertainty of death. The speaker’s uncertainty in line five diminishes his claim that Death is an ineffective villain.
By easing his stance on Death for just these lines, the speaker loses credibility in the rest of the poem. It leaves an unconvinced audience, confusing the overall message of the poem. This is especially important when trying to overcome Death by confining it into a sonnet. The sonnet itself exercises a control over what a poet can write. In some ways, Donne is putting Death into a prison of words. Prison can be viewed as a way to put people away that society does not want to deal with. Donne’s speaker is doing the same thing; he is putting Death in a sonnet because he does not want to deal with Death’s effects and control over him. Contrary to the speaker’s intentions, the two lines of uncertainty seem to put Death out of Donne’s control. Donne’s speaker gives the impression that he is overcoming the fear of Death by confining it to paper, yet he loses his convincing attitude in these two lines.
Donne quickly tries to regain his control on the sonnet by further implicating Death as a scoundrel and not a vital part to the circle of life. Donne’s dastardly Death takes humanity’s “best men” and is a “slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men” (7 9). Donne’s speaker is trying to deplete Death’s power by attaching the image of a slave to Death. By using the slave imagery, Death seems powerless without the help of the other things mentioned like fate. The problem of his argument is that Death takes the best men and it is assumed they go to Heaven, at least with Donne’s Christian beliefs. So, Death should be considered an instrument of God gathering the worthy rather than a villain working against God. If Donne’s speaker had conceded that point, his argument could still work. He could claim the powerlessness of Death to God because Death could be considered a slave to God, instead of a slave to fate or chance.
Donne continues to relate Death with wicked imagery. Death is coupled with “poison, war, and sickness” (10), which is true, yet lacks the foresight of considering Death as relief or mercy. The speaker persists on weakening the thought of Death by saying that sleep is “well/ And better than thy stroke” (11-12). Associating Death as sleep plays into the speaker’s belief that Death is a temporary state. The speaker equates Death as a “short sleep” before humans “wake eternally” (13). He believes Death is an inconvenient condition on the way to the afterlife, as he says, “death, thou shalt die” (14). It reaffirms the speaker’s stubborn position and inability to accept Death. Going further, threats are usually issued when someone is afraid of what someone else will do. There seems to be, along with a clear uncertainty, a real fear of Death in Donne’s poem. Donne’s speaker overcompensates his disdain of Death to the point that the reader senses some desperation in the voice of the poem.
Overall, Death does not get a fair chance in Donne’s poem. He is immediately cast as a villain and undesirable character. In the speaker’s philosophy, death is a temporary state that ends in eternal life. In Dickinson’s poem, Death is a companion in life because he is always there. Dickinson’s Death is a final state for her speaker. Her eternity is the peace in death, not the afterlife that Donne is hoping for. She is much more secure with Death as opposed to Donne’s speaker. Dickinson was taught Christian beliefs, just as Donne was (Hoepfner 96); yet Dickinson believes Death is inexorably connected with the afterlife. Her Bohemian outlook on Death provides a much more compelling argument.
There is comfort in both ways of thinking of Death. Whether someone takes Donne’s view or Dickinson’s view, everyone will experience death at some point in his or her lives. Yet, until someone rides with Death himself on that winding road of life, Death will remain an abstract concept that poets can only touch on. Death comes into people’s lives differently, and may not always resemble the cowled baddie that Donne’s speaker stereotyped.
Works Cited
Abbott, Collamer M. "Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death." Explicator spring (1999): 212-13. MLA Bibliography. EBSCO. Thomas Tredway Library, Rock Island.
Dickinson, Emily. “Because I could not stop for Death.” Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound & Sense. Ed. Arp, Thomas, and Greg Johnson. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009. 742.
Donne, John. “Death, be not proud.” Perrine’s Literature Structure, Sound & Sense. Ed. Arp, Thomas, and Greg Johnson. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2009. 890.
Frank, Bernhard. "Dickinson's Because I Could Not Stop For Death-." Explicator winter (2000): 82-83. MLA Bibliography. EBSCO. Thomas Tredway Library, Rock Island.
Hoepfner, Theodore C. "Because I Could Not Stop For Death." American Literature (1957): 96. MLA Bibliography. EBSCO. Thomas Tredway Library, Rock Island.
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Repairing the Chinks in the Writer's Armor
During Writing about Literature, and more importantly, the writers workshops in the class, I have learned to stop making the same mistakes that I have been making throughout my life as a students. Specifically, my theses have been getting better and I try for a more original claim than I used to. I recently went through my computer, looking for documents I still wanted and the ones I needed to get rid of. I stumbled across my papers I wrote for my high school A.P English class.
While looking over these papers, I wanted to see how much I’ve improved in my writing. It would be an understatement to say that I’ve improved a lot. I could see some hints of a good paper when looking at them, but it was nothing compared to my college papers.
To show the comparison, I have salvaged a couple theses from these papers. I had to write a paper on Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. “Through Bronte’s writing on the two houses, the reader’s can get a better understanding of the events that will follow through the course of Wuthering Heights.” It simply isn’t specific enough to be a thesis. It doesn’t prove anything except being vague. A good thesis could be developed if I had connected how the descriptions of the two houses foreshadowed the events in the novel, but again, it isn’t too original.
I had another paper on Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. “Through a ruthless retribution, Oedipus has learned his lesson about testing the gods and he will never again defy the gods’ will.” It is more a statement than an argument. I had basically stated the moral of the story. It didn’t occur to me back then that there was no way to argue against something like that. I would rehash a very simple idea about the work I was reading.
But now, I can see that my theses have improved greatly. Towards the beginning of the year, I could see my theses being safe, but arguable. I saw the flaw in a thesis that has been stated before so, later in the year, I tried to really find something in the work that would make my thesis original or at least a different view than most readers would have. By doing so, it made me more passionate about my topic resulting in better writing. So, in effect, because my thesis was improving, everything else was falling into place too. Overall, I think the Writing about Literature course helped me become a lot less daunted when writing about Dickenson and Whitman, or Bronte and Sophocles. The important but simple result is that I am now a much better writer.
-Wes Solether
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