He is formal and polite with her which causes her to put her things away and watch all that they pass by. They pass children, nature controlled by man, and then the sun passes them, leaving them in the cool darkness. They arrive and a house half decayed and being reclaimed by the earth it's beautiful. The span of this trip is a century though it merely feels a day to her because death has no time. That is why he does not haste, he does not rip people violently away though that is how the survivors see it, he just does his job slowly and politely. She could not stop for him, because she was going too fast, life is fast paced no matter what time period your in. Zooming out from the timeline one realizes how short of time we actually have here.
On a mostly personal note, this poem always makes me feel happy. Most people just see Emily as a very depressing and sad person, but I don't. Hidden beneath the words that send most away is a breath taking awe of what she has gone through and seen, a respect for the happening of things.
I agree that this poem can be viewed as spiritually uplifting, and I love the way you worded how Dickinson, or the narrator of this poem, takes a step back and appreciates/respects life and all of its natural constancies. I like your focus on the span of time in this poem, and how the slow pace of Death's carriage influences the ease of mind that the narrator has. Like you said, a human lifespan is rushed in the scope of existence/eternal life cycles - therefore when Death politely stops for the narrator and takes her for a meandering ride, a sense of relief arises. Haste does not exist anymore- why would it? The last stanza suggests the span of this journey takes multiple centuries instead of just one (emphasizing the endlessness of both life and death), which feels like not even a day to the narrator. I think all of this supports the relief of time that the narrator feels once in the carriage. My interpretation is that along with realizing how short human life is, the narrator is also able to finally comprehend that time doesn't really matter-- that while death and immortality seem like the antithesis of each other, they both are timeless.
ReplyDeleteI like this reading of the poem. I too saw it in a positive tone. Dickinson offers a mature outlook on the inevitability of death by shows the bleak truths of death's nature and our limited time, but also allows the reader to see an afterlife, which takes away some of the heaviness of talking about death in a poem.
ReplyDeleteI like this reading of the poem. I too saw it in a positive tone. Dickinson offers a mature outlook on the inevitability of death by shows the bleak truths of death's nature and our limited time, but also allows the reader to see an afterlife, which takes away some of the heaviness of talking about death in a poem.
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