Immortality and Death: The Dichotomy in Emily Dickinson's Poem

This line is taken from the poem 'Because I could not stop for death'. This is a poem by Emily Dickinson.

In the poem the speaker evidently young women is conscious even after her death and she is consciously traveling with death and immortality to the final destination. The poem beautifully narrates the posthumous journey of the speaker and how she has waited for centuries for her destination, the gradient. One significant aspect of the poem is that the primary theme of the poem is death and the speaker is dead. She is posthumously conscious of the process of death and after death. It's a journey to eternity, a journey to timelessness. The poem reminds us of Shakespeare's meditations on death, especially Cleopatra's celebration of death in the final act of antonian Cleopatra. She quoted death as sweet as a bum, as soft as air. We may also be reminded of Magnet speech after life's fitful fever she sleeps well. Actually, we Don't have enough time for death, no time is fit for us to die. We are so glued to the happenings of life, to the desires of this modern existence that we can hardly want to die. Everybody knows that they are immortal but everybody believes man is mortal,he is not. He is immortal. And when we lose someone we lament that it is not his time for death. Just think of the final soliloquy of Macbeth, when he came to know that Lady Macbeth was dead. He instantly uttered she should die hereafter and death the famous soliloquy followed tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. We creep in the petty pace of the last syllable of recorded time. Even Macbeth was not ready to accept lady mackbet's death. He wanted death to be postponed and then he realizes that no man is ever ready to accept death.

In this poem, lines three and four the poet says,

'The Carriage held but just Ourselves-

And Immortality.

In these two lines, the poet begins by saying that she was concious in the beginning of just death and herself being in the carriage. But with that little dash in the in the end of line three and a pause, there is a moment of meaningful suspence in which we are left hanging. It's almost like the poet is saying that i think there is just death and me but I feel there is something else and that one is immorality. We can notice that in that two lines poet capitalize three words which are common noun making them into proper noun. They bare Carriage, Ourselves and Immortality. But that does not mean that the poet personified that words. Its just that by capitalizing she wants to catch our attention and she is giving importance to these three words. The carriage is not an ordinary carriage in the poem. This carriage is the death chariest for the poet. So this carriage is different. It is something which is on mission which is going to take her from into this this life to another life, which she imagines as an afterlife. When we look at the word ourselves - this personal pronoun gives a sence of intimacy or relationship. Relationship has already been established death and the poet. And that what the poet want to convey. The two of them are inclosed in a carriage when suddenly they discover the third person, who is immortality. Immortality is the most complicated and interesting word in all these three and two lines. We might have a thought in our mind that why immortality is there in the carriage because this poem is about death. Death is related to mortality but the truth is the poet has declared that it is immortality. The poet is looking as death as a transition. She is looking at death not as something sorrowful, not something that is involbe in pain. But rather she is looking at death as a steping stone something better. This might be the reason why the poet is not feeling upset about Dead stopping by to collect her. In fact it looks like she is ready for the ride with death in the carriage.