Evaluate Dickinson as a poet of death and immortality with especial reference to "Because I Could not Stop for Death."

Ans. Emily Dickinson is a famous American poet. One of the most prominent themes of her poems is death and immortality. "Because I Could not Stop for Death" is one of her many poems which deal specially with this theme. She might have been inspired with this theme by the high mortality rate for the young people of a New England town where she was brought up.This was, perhaps, also the cause of her withdrawal from the world, her doubts about the fulfilment of her worldly desires, and the possible life beyond the grave. She was more death-haunted than any other English and American poets.
The thought of immortality is closely linked with the thought of death. In some of her poems Dickinson imagines her own death, while in some other poems she meditates on death as a general
theme. She belicves that immortality of the soul can be achieved through dissolution, decay and death of the temporal body.To her death is the gateway to the divine and to the immortality of the soul.
"Because I Could not Stop for Death" deals with Dickinson's faith and immortality in a quite well-defined way.The poem shows death escorting the female speaker to an assured paradise. But other critics think that death comes in the form of a deceiver, perhaps even a
rapist, to carry her off to destruction. But to us, the poem appeals in a different way The very first stanza presents an apparently cheerful view of it; Death is a lover, a kindly person. His vehicle connotes respect or courtship, and he is accompanied by Immortality. The word "stop" has a double meaning: it means Death's stopping for a person, or it means stopping one's daily activities. From the
viewpoint of this pun Death's kindness may seem ironical. It suggests his grim determination to take the woman despite her occupation with life. She is alone with Death in his vehicle: it indicates that
Death is her suitor. Death does not need any haste because he has enormous power. and timeThe poet puts off her claims en life -- this means she is pleased with her exchange of life fer his civility.
In the third stanza a sense of motion is introduced. The living and the dead are separated. School-children's activities represent the living which is now out of question for the dead. This sense of motion is carried on through the fourth stanza. The poet and the sun cross
each other.
In the fifth stanza she is buried in the grave.
The last stanza implies that the vehicle is moving on and on through eternity. The poet is then conseious of eternity, being in the grave after death.
Immortality accompanies Death, it mears Death involves immortality.
The poem thus embodies Dickinson's conception of death and immortality.