Life, Through Death

"Go, then. There are other worlds than these." says John “Jake” Chambers as he plummets to his death in Stephen King's The Gunslinger.   No one ever wants to die, but deep within our minds we all know that death is inevitable.   Jake's words reverberate with a strong sense of relaxedness, as if he has already accepted his fate.   In Because I Could Not Stop For Death, Emily Dickinson reinforces this idea of inevitability; that we are all on a one way track to death.   In turn, she relays that we should live our lives without dreading death, and to live everyday as our last.   She conveys that life should be lived to its fullest within its time constraints because once we are dead, time becomes meaningless.   While at first seemingly contrary to Dickenson, John Donne conveys essentially the same message in Holy Sonnet X (Death, be not proud).   He gives death near-human qualities and essentially debunks the mysteriousness and reverence that death holds over people.   Death is not something to fear, he says, and goes on to insult death for its arrogance and weakness.   Although he insults death, he does not deny death either; rather, Donne expresses a more laid back, "I-don't-care" attitude towards death.
In the first few lines of Dickinson’s poem, she invites the reader to reflect with her on the passing of time during one’s life while we are still alive: “Because I could not stop for Death – / He kindly stopped for me –“ (Dickinson).   In effect, she says that her life was so busy that she simply had no time to think about death.   Nobody knows the day of their death and we continue to live our lives day-to-day hoping that we will still be alive when we wake up the next day.   One cannot wait for death to come when he/she is “ready” to embrace it; it just simply arrives at some point in our lives.   Dickinson then “dies” and shows the reader that time is eternal after death:
“We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His... [continues]

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