Emily Dickinson’s Ambivalence about Immortality: An Analysis of “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”

School of English Studies, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China

^* Corresponding author: 0201101077@shisu.edu.cn

Abstract

Death holds special significance in Emily Dickinson’s poems. “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, one of her most celebrated death poems, visualizes the dying process with symbolic images and tangible feelings. What is the destination of Death’s chariot? Tomb or eternity? Is immortality attainable? Stirred by vague, paradoxical, and ambiguous descriptions, doubts begin to surface. Based on William Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity and detailed textual analysis, this paper attributes the ambivalence towards immortality to Dickinson’s mental complexity, responding to Empson’s call to look for a puzzle. Deeply rooted in Dickinson’s uncertainty about theology, ambiguity is more than a typical poetic strategy. The conflicts between religion and empiricism enable her to believe and disbelieve in different circumstances, and this poem is the best representation. As many of Dickinson’s poems exhibit psychological ambivalence and verbal ambiguity, this paper also strives to build an analytical framework equally applicable to them.