Two poem two ideas
Two poem two ideasTwo Poems. Two Ideas. One Author Two of Emily Dickinson’s poems, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz-When I Died,” are both about one of life’s few certainties: death. However, that is where the similarities end. Although both poems were created less than a year apart by the same poet, their ideas about what lies after death differ. In one, there appears to be life after death, but in the other there is nothing. Only a number of clues in each piece help us determine which poem believes in what. In the piece, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” we are being told the tale of a woman who is being taken away by Death. This is our first indication that this poem believes in an afterlife. In most religions, where there is a grim reaper like specter, this entity will deliver a person’s soul to another place, usually a heaven or a hell. In the fifth stanza, Death and the woman pause before “…a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground- The Roof was scarcely visible- The Cornice in the Ground-” (913). Although the poem does not directly say it, it is highly probable that this grave is the woman’s own. It is also possible the woman’s body already rests beneath the soil in a casket. If this is at all accurate, then her spirit or soul may be the one who is looking at the “house.” Spirits and souls usually mean there is an afterlife involved. It isn’t until the sixth and final stanza where the audience obtains conclusive evidence that “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” believes in an afterlife. The woman recalls how it has been “…Centuries- and yet feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses’ Heads were...
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