The grave is portrayed in numerous ways. In Because I could not stop for death it is seen a new home:

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground
The roof was fairly visible
The Cornice but a mound.

By giving the grave these attributes the burial mound is transformed into a more absolute dwelling. The image of the grave is euphonized into a home. This is intresting because instead of using traditional images of graves being cold, dark and deep, here the grave is seen as just another habitat, there is nothing uninviting about it.

On one level this adds a sense of irony to the poem. It appears as though the woman’s life is not necessarily coming to end but she is simply changing locations or moving to a new residence. In reality the woman’s physical life is over, however instead of focusing on death as a conclusion of life Dickinson instead uses the grave to affirm her point that the true difference between life and death is that death is eternity without action or change.  The last stanza confirms this point

The image of a grave in I wish I knew that woman’s name is personified. To the protaganist the grave is on the same level as her when she states

“ Just when the grave and I
Have sobbed ourselves almost to sleep
Our only lullaby”

It is intresting that to the unnamed woman the grave itself is another character. It is her equal and her companion through the afterlife sharing in her sorrow and regret. The idea that the grave is a living entity gives off a somber impression that woman who is equal to the grave shares many of the same qualities of death.
A grave is a symbol for death and finality. It marks the end of an era, and the fact that all things must eventually come to an end. However the woman who is the grave’s equal treats  it as a friend, the only one she can relate to as they “ have sobbed themselves to sleep”.  This suggests that death again is not a physical act, but instead a state of dormancy. The grave as a charachter is just as inactive as the woman. The woman who cannot remember her death suggests that thier was not much difference between when she was living and when she was dwelling in the grave. The fact that she personifies the grave to an equal, verifies that the grave is a place of passiveness and immobility.

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