Charachterization is used in a number of poems. Both Because I could not stop for death and I wish I knew that woman’s name are told to the reader by unnamed deceased characters describing there afterlife. However they also add multiple characters by pesonyfiyng death and the grave.
            Death is described as polite and kind.

“ We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility”

By giving Death warm human traits, Dickinson is able to add to the story that’s as well as re-define death in the traditional sense. The interaction between the two characters in this stanza reveals also how life and death act in relation to each other. The woman and death have respect for each other,  Death is not violent or unruly instead they are calm and almost friendly as the passenger describes how she “ Put away my labor and my leisure too, for his civility”. A more traditional view would be that death was an unknown entity, who violently and unexpectedly kills the passenger, he would be reckless and careless, However death is instead seen as patient and polite. The fact that
 “ We drove slowly/
he Knew no Haste”

Only strengthens the fact that death is a rational character, instead of a monster to be feared.
Death’s passivity and slowness on the journey speaks volume’s about dickinson’s view on death.  It takes death an entire day to reach the end destination because he “knew no haste”. Even when they reach the grave/home. Death does not take action instead he “Pauses”. The fact that the character of death is sedentary contributes to dickinson’s theme that the difference between life and death is not necessary a finality to the conscious but is instead a finality to act.

The un named woman in I wish I knew that woman’s name also personifies, death. Instead of death taking her to her grave, the unnamed woman instead chooses to personify the it as a companion. In the poem she and the grave find solace of sobbing themselves to sleep " Our Only Lullaby" . Pther charachter's in the poem include the woman whose name the protaganist is try to remember.