The Personification of Death in the Poems “Mid-term break” and “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.” Samuel Johnson (English poet -1784)

Seamus Heaney was the eldest sibling in his family of 9, Heaney wrote the poem “Mid-term break” after the death of his young brother when he was involved in a car crash in 1953. This emotional turmoil is made all the more confusing as Heaney was only 4 years old at the time of the tragedy, Heaney uses a variety of techniques to give off a dramatic effect to engage the reader in his work & focuses on personifying death, family grief and the rites of passage.

Emily Dickenson wrote a massive amount of poems with most of them playing around the topic of death. Her poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death “ takes the reader on a journey through and a world after death, specifically, an encounter death who she shows as a male and drives a carriage.

The ending line in the poem “Mid-Term Break” - “a four-foot box, a foot for every year” clearly emphasizes that Heaney's brother was only a 4 year old when he passes away. This shows us that death does not care about who he wants to take with him, death/he is portrayed as powerful and uncontrollable who is willing to take the lives of a young child without any shame or care.

‘Four-Foot box, a Foot for every year’ and ‘ambulance arrived’ are both alliterations used by Heaney in his poem that show us atrocity of death. Alliteration is again used to emphasize that his brother was 4 when death took him portraying to us that death is merciless. Heaney also emphasizes the phrase ‘ambulance arrived’ as it symbolizes death and pain that it comes with. Heaney’s use of alliterations shows us the fierce perspective of death.

In the poem “Because I could not stop for death”, Emily uses Iambic tetrameter to create an unsettling effect, a perfect example would be the title. Emily’s use of iambic tetrameter creates a rhythm just like a human heartbeat which gives this a feeling like it's alive, this is also called personification as it personifies death as its been given qualities of a human such as a heartbeat, emotions, movement etc.

“And immortality” is another use of iambic trimeter in Emily's poems, her use of iambic trimeter creates the effect that death is a person a person and is being personified as a human and been given human qualities this makes it seem like death is more formal throughout the whole poem.

Dickinson's clever choice of the title “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is a metaphor and a personification for death. Her use of words” could not stop for death” show us that she sees death as a human figure, possibly a higher power than human/also giving it human qualities. This is a clear juxtaposition to Heaney's version of death. Emily also makes Death seems like a nice person as he waits for the reader. This repeats the fact that death is not a horrible thing and is all part of life, later on in the poem Dickenson starts using “we” instead of “he”, which shows us that the speaker is slowly starting to fade which means that they are

At the end of the poem we know that death has brought the speaker to its home, this suggests that they are dead and life has ended. In this journey Dickenson did not show any pain in this process of death, this tells us that the speaker did not regret dying and did not feel any sorrow for herself and she understood that death needs to be accepted and it's a peaceful journey and there is nothing that will prevent death.

Mid-Term Break; We can finally see the evidence of death. In the second stanza when Heaney arrives home, he sees his “father crying”, even though they “had always taken funerals in his stride”. The line “the has always taken funerals in his stride“ show us that someone in Heaney's family has died, as the audience, we all know is his brother who has passed away but at this point in the story, Heaney does not know that his brother is dead. Also, Heany's father is portrayed as strong and unyielding. But in this text, Heaney's shows us that his grieving, this demonstrates how distressing this death really is. It can show us effectively that their family is going through a tough time as when we see someone cry and grieving we relate it to a terrible incident which gives an effect of the presence of death.

In the second stanza, a metaphor is used “and big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow” by Heaney to portray death. The phrase “hard blow” shows us the loss and stress of Heaney when he lost this brother. This is also a form of imagery as his brother did get a hard blow from a car and “hard blow “ is also used to show emotional distress.