Tuesday, June 23, 2015

In the poem "Because I Could Not Stop for Death"by Emily Dickinson, what words have a connotative meaning?

In the second line, the word, "kindly", has a positive
connotation giving the impression that the poem is not going to look at death in a
negative manner.  In the next four-line stanza, the words, "slowly", "no haste",
"labor", "leisure", and "civility" all carry meaning.  The implication is that the
narrator is in a peaceful existence where time is not measured.  The third stanza
displays images more than single connotative words.  The image of children playing
innocently, free of worry comprises the first two lines and the image of ripening fields
being seen in the setting sun are the last two lines.  These are a contrast - the
children playing gives the impression of happy, carefree life while the the other image
gives the impression of a life that has been lived and is now at the end (setting sun). 
The fourth stanza is a metaphor for a new grave.  The reader can infer that the grave is
the narrator's and that the previous stanzas were the narrator's progression to that
grave.  The last stanza indicates that much time has passed since the narrator died, but
that time has little meaning now.  Throughout the poem, the impression is one of
peacefulness and timelessness.  The title makes the implication that the narrator was
busy in life and that death came unexpectedly, but the rest of the poem says that once
dead, the narrator realizes that there was a great deal of life going on that she had
not noticed while alive and now, she has eternity to realize
that.

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