In the poem, she personifies Death as a gentleman caller.
The reason for this personification is to illuminate that death is nothing to be feared and that it is eternal. “Because” mixes a comfortable meter with an unusual rhyme scheme to try and comfort the reader about death while at the same time presenting a morbid topic. The poet uses deeper personifications of death and immortality for the aforementioned reasons. Furthermore, the poet is at peace with death and so, Death is personified as the poet's eternal companion. The purpose of this poem is to make us comfortable with the idea of death.
The poet tries to get us comfortable with the uncomfortable topic of death by choosing a fairly comfortable meter, and yet an odd rhyme scheme. The meter alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, an audibly pleasing sound that give the impression of carriage hoof beats against a groundless road. Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me. The carriage held just but ourselves And Immortality.
One could argue that there is an implied iamb at the end of the trimeter lines to give us a moment of reflection on the new information the poet has given us. Iambic meter is common in poetry, iambic pentameter being the most common among poetry, such as “Shall I compare thee to a summer day” or any of Shakespeare's other sonnets. Therefore, the poet found it an appropriate choice, one that would be familiar to us. Now the rhyme scheme starts off in an interesting ABCB type where the trimeter lines rhyme. This pattern is disrupted in the third stanza when she sees her life pass before her eyes and she passes the sun; the moment of her death. At this point she holds no more punches, in a manner, with ABCD type, ending the trimeter lines with “ring”(Dickinson,10) and “sun” (12). After the moment is over though, she returns to ABCB, having become comfortable with the idea that she is, in fact, dead. She doesn't want us to glaze over this critical moment in a comfortable rhyme. Rather, she wants to call attention to its significance by intentionally abandoning the rhyme.
Secondly, in keeping with making her audience comfortable with the passage of death, there is a great amount of life in her “characters” of immortality and death. And her journey seems less lonely that way, making her passage of death seem like an ordinary carriage ride. She personifies the years of her life in the places she passes, such as “the school”(9), which represents her early formative years, “the fields” (11), which represent her productive years, and the “setting sun” (12), which represents her final days.
She also uses the imagery of a circle to keep our minds fixed on the concept of eternity. The unmentioned carriage wheels, the “ring” (10), and the “sun” (12), help us keep that image firmly planted. Lastly she mentions how after the fact (the moment of death) the centuries that have passed “feels shorter than the day” (22) of her death. She gives us that piece of advice at the end of her poem to remind us that on the day of her death time was filled with significance where in the eternity beyond time held no power.
Finally, she personifies Death as a polite companion, to show that she is at peace with death. She doesn't want anybody reading the poem to see death as somebody who kidnapped the poet in the prime of her life. She didn't want us to see death as a villain. She signifies that death took his time and was courteous by describing him driving with “no haste” (5). Unlike the popular view of death where one is taken at the whim of some grim reaper under His timeframe, this poem gives us the impression that death gave his lady one last look at life and the time necessary to digest the information. When her moment of death has come, he then kindly escorts her to her tomb: “a house that seemed / a swelling of the ground” (17-18). It is here that the journey ends, and the rest of their lives, so to speak, begins.
Emily Dickinson shows, in this poem, an amazing understanding of the afterlife as being a natural part of life. She shows her willingness to face death without fear, as well as a belief that life does go on beyond the mortal coil. Therefore we can see through the writing style, her imagery and the personification of Death, that the purpose of this poem is the make us comfortable with the idea of death.
