Why I Could Not Stop for DeathIn the poem "Why I Could Not Stop for Death", Emily Dickinson talks about her acceptance of death as something inevitable that comes to her and does not has no control over it; although she seems confused about whether she is alive or dead as she continues narrating. Arthur Yvor Winters, an American poet and literary critic said: "This is an extraordinarily beautiful poem on the theme of the daily realization of the imminence of death" it is a poem of departure from life, an intensely conscious farewell. And Allen Tate, a distinguished American poet, teacher and critic, called it "An extraordinary poem." In the first verse, when she says "I couldn't stop for death, He kindly stopped for me", she is not ready to die but accepts the fact that it is a natural thing that happens to all human beings and comes in its own time, no matter what you are doing or where you are, she will come and take you, which she seems happy about. She personifies Death as if he were a kind gentleman, or her husband coming for her and taking her away in his carriage for a pleasant ride; he also realizes that, ironically, someone else is riding along with them, Immortality, looking at it positively. It is also interesting to point out how he separates death from immortality, when he says “The carriage contained only ourselves and immortality”. She seems enthusiastic about the journey with her two companions, and is so pleased with the courtesy of this gentleman that she gives up her anguish and her freedom to enjoy it: when you are dead, there are no more problems and there is no more free time. He feels happy to have exchanged life for the civilization of death. Now it seems that she wanted to die sooner but couldn't, and death came to her, but slowly, as if she were sick. She doesn't realize where she's headed as he drives the carriage away slowly, unhurriedly - this means she's already dead and about to be taken in a hearse. She sees her life as a movie that plays in front of her as they pass the school, the cornfields and the setting sun. The children playing remind her of her childhood, energetic and full of life; the grains suggest the time of harvest (grow, be productive, ripen), adulthood; and looks at them as if there was something she missed or didn't do in that moment in her life, a moment she should have enjoyed.