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I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I Died –, written by Emily Dickinson, is an interesting poem in which the poet deals with the subject of death in a doubtful yet both optimistic and pessimistic ways. The central theme of the poem is the doubtfulness and the reality of death. The poem is written in a very unique point of view; the narrator who is speaking is already dead. By using symbols, irony, oxymoron, imagery and punctuation, the poet greatly succeeds in showing the reality of death and her own doubtful feelings towards time after death. The use of fly in the poem, I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I Died –, act as a symbol which represents the hope of the person on her deathbed. The quietness in the room is described as “the Stillness in the Air/ Between the Heaves of Storm” (3-4). This indicates that people around the deathbed and the narrator are waiting quietly and calmly, standing between life and death, like the calmness between one storm and the other. However, the room is not completely quiet. The poem starts by saying “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –/ the Stillness in the Room” (1-2), which means that the only noise heard in the room, where she is lying before death, is a fly buzzing. Interestingly, this has a significant meaning. The fly buzzing despite the quietness in the room is as if the fly is interfering between the life and death of the narrator. In other words, the sound of the fly gives the narrator, who is perhaps scared before death, the hope of life by allowing the narrator to keep her mind off the subject of death. Moreover, when the narrator says “I willed my Keepsakes – Singed away/ what portion of me be/ Assignable” (9-11), it shows that the narrator has completely organized his possessions by giving them to ... ... middle of paper ... ...ion or not, people come across the thought on what will happen to themselves after death. The poem best shows the people’s fear and doubtfulness toward the subject of death. Additionally, the reason that Emily Dickinson wrote the poem is quite clear: she also wanted an answer for the mysterious life after death, which no one has an answer to. Works Consulted Dickinson, Emily. The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1976. Print. Guthrie, James R. Emily Dickinson's Vision: Illness and Identity in Her Poetry. Gainesville: University of Florida, 1998. Print. Miller, Cristanne. Emily Dickinson, a Poet's Grammar. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1989. Print. Wilner, Eleanor. "The Poetics of Emily Dickinson." JSTOR. The Johns Hopkins University Press. Web. 4 June 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2872366?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents