Amina Hasan Because I could not stop for Death" is one of Emily Dickinson's most enigmatic poems .

The metaphors used explore death in an captivating and unusual way, they often contain as much ambiguity as significance. Most critics agree that the first two lines, "Because I could not stop for death - / He kindly stopped for me -" (490), capture the poem's dominant theme, but their interpretations of that theme vary greatly. Critics also disagree on the meaning of the children "in the Ring" (490) in the third stanza. Especially controversial is the puzzling reversal at the beginning of the fourth stanza - "Or rather - He passed Us -" (490), which leads to wildly different interpretations. Although the poem is a source of great controversy, there are several fundamental ideas on which most critics agree. First of all, most critics accept that Dickinson personifies Death as a gentleman taking the speaker for a ride in his carriage. Second, the three images presented in the third stanza, the children "in the Ring" (490), the "Fields of Gazing Grain" (490) and the "Setting Sun" (490) indicate the stages of life, from childhood to maturity to old age and death. Third, the speaker's garments of "Gossamer" and "Tulle" (490) indicate to many critics that she could not have been expecting the carriage ride to last forever when she set out, as she "does not even have the foresight to dress warmly" (Bernhard). Fourth, the "House that seemed / A Swelling of the Ground -" (490) represents a grave. Fifth, the last two lines, "I first surmised the Horses' Heads / Were toward Eternity -" (490) seem to mean that the soul is eternal in spite of death. Beyond these five points, however, critics' interpretations diverge. The first area of discrepancy is the meaning of the first two lines, "Because I could not stop for Death - / He kindly stopped for me" (490). B.N. Raina presents what he considers to be the most obvious interpretation: "since the narrative subject of the poem finds herself rather too involved in the humdrum of living, with no thought of death, Death like a civil gentleman-suitor stops by in his chaise and four to take the busy persona out for the final ride" (Raina). However, Raina goes on to argue that the above translation is overly superficial. He suggests that the speaker, instead of merely ignoring death, actually conceives of death as a "nonreality" (Raina), existing only "within the time-bound finite world" (Raina), not within "the imaginitive infinity of consciousness" (Raina). When the first line is interpreted this way, the second line takes on a new significance as well. Death stops not in the sense of "stops by" but in the sense of "ceases to be" (Raina). John M. Greenberg proposes an even more radical interpretation. He claims that "the poem is not about biological death at all, but about a vision of the rest of her life, a life of creative seclusion" (Greenberg). Her life, he argues, was "so abnormal, so unlike the life any sane young woman (including Emily) would choose that it could be compared only to death" (Greenberg). In the third stanza, a second discrepancy appears. The speaker describes "the School, where Children strove / at Recess - in the Ring -" (490). George Monteiro notes that "the children . . . do not play (as anyone would expect them to) but strive" (Monteiro). Perhaps in response to the same observation, Patricia Engle suggests that the children's activity symbolizes not the innocent diversions of childhood but "the thrashings of professional competition that occur in the ladderclimbing stages of one's career" (Engle). George Monteiro offers a different explanation, speculating that "their game is the one called 'Ring-a-ring-a-roses'" (Monteiro) which was "originally recited by children . . . as a charm against the ravages of the plague" (Monteiro). If this is indeed what they are

playing, then "imbedded in their ritualistic game is a reminder of the mortal stakes" (Monteiro) so central to the poem's meaning. Dickinson begins the fourth stanza with a surprising, and controversial, reversal: "Or rather - He passed Us -" (490). Many critics believe that "He" refers to the sun. Bernhard Frank goes further, claiming that the sudden reversal is a result of the speaker's realization that because of death, she will come "to an abrupt, reversible halt" (Frank), while "the sun . . . will keep revolving" (Frank). Patricia Engle challenges the accepted view by suggesting that "the 'He' . . . may also refer to Death" (Engle), introducing the possibility that at some point the speaker "leaves Death's carriage" (Engle) and stands among the various stages of life watching the carriage go by. In this case, the "Us" (490) would refer to the speaker and the stages of her life, instead of the speaker and Death.