Emily Dickinson is one of the most well-regarded, and well-known American poets of today. Born in 1830s Massachusetts, she lived quite an introverted life, writing a collection of more than 1760 poems. She spent most of her early life in school, but later in adulthood, indoors, writing or reading literature. Many of her poems deal with life and death, and also immortality, with her poem, “I Heard a Fly buzz—when I died” not an exception. Emily usually did not give titles to her poems. Her works, instead, are titled as their first line, or given number by author Thomas H. Johnson in his book The Poems of Emily Dickinson. The poem “I Heard a Fly buzz—when I died” was numbered 465 according to Johnson’s analysis of the poems’ date of publication.
This means that a title cannot be analyzed, therefore a jump to the first line of the first stanza must be done. The first line of “I Heard a Fly buzz—when I died” includes, “I Heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” (Dickinson 1). The significance the narrator is putting on the fly cannot be missed. Ironically, other than rot and decay, there is no significance or relation between death and flies. This could either show that the fly is only a figure or a representation of an important part of the poem, or the narrator is lying dead in a dirty, obscure place. The next lines Dickinson writes in the poem include, “The Stillness in the Room / Was like the Stillness in the Air—” (2-3). Through these lines, it can be concluded that the speaker is in a silent room, most likely referring to an indoor area. However, the lines can be vague on its reference of whether the narrator is talking about the silence other than the fly or that the fly is in the narrator’s mind and the room really is silent. The last line of the first stanza writes, “Between the Heaves of Storm—” (Dickinson 4). This line shows the reader tension. The phrase “calm before the storm” might come into mind. This tells the reader that the room the speaker lies in is very tense. This might hint that other people are present as the dead cannot feel tension other than cause
However, in their deathbed, the truth, the reality of their situation, that death is death and nothing else, will remain in their subconscious, and will shortly be realized. Written in four parts, Emily sets up an interesting, attention grabbing first stanza, highlighting the significance of a fly to the death of a person. She continues to raise inquiry and interest as she introduces religion and reveals to the reader the narrator’s situation. This was followed by a conveyance of the narrator’s personality, showing kindness and generosity. A surprise then crashes in, revealing the significance of the fly as the harsh truth and reality, and the realization of the falsities of religion and the afterlife. She successfully communicates truth in atheism, the fallacy in the belief of religion, and theists’ futile resistance of finality, through the creation of an afterlife, a
...y examined for the beauty and grace of God. In this poem, however, the fly is a messenger to the speaker. The fly's presence both comforts and informs the speaker about death and the appreciation of life. By choosing this creature, Dickinson portrays the beauty in every living thing: even the pesky fly has a purpose and a place on earth and in life. The poem also explains what the dying is experiencing, but it strays away from describing pain and fear and concentrates on how the speaker pays close attention to those that will continue to live. The speaker hopes to leaving something significant behind other than just material goods. She also notices that in the surreal moments before death, the stillness in the room encompasses everyone and everything, including even the air that fills the room. These elements work together to expose the beauty and serenity of death.
Death is a controversial and sensitive subject. When discussing death, several questions come to mind about what happens in our afterlife, such as: where do you go and what do you see? Emily Dickinson is a poet who explores her curiosity of death and the afterlife through her creative writing ability. She displays different views on death by writing two contrasting poems: one of a softer side and another of a more ridged and scary side. When looking at dissimilar observations of death it can be seen how private and special it is; it is also understood that death is inevitable so coping with it can be taken in different ways. Emily Dickinson’s poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” show both parallel and opposing views on death.
Emily Dickinson was one of the greatest woman poets. She left us with numerous works that show us her secluded world. Like other major artists of nineteenth-century American introspection such as Emerson, Thoreau, and Melville, Dickinson makes poetic use of her vacillations between doubt and faith. The style of her first efforts was fairly conventional, but after years of practice she began to give room for experiments. Often written in the meter of hymns, her poems dealt not only with issues of death, faith and immortality, but with nature, domesticity, and the power and limits of language.
Emily Dickinson once said, “Dying is a wild night and a new road.” Some people welcome death with open arms while others cower in fear when confronted in the arms of death. Through the use of ambiguity, metaphors, personification and paradoxes Emily Dickinson still gives readers a sense of vagueness on how she feels about dying. Emily Dickinson inventively expresses the nature of death in the poems, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain (280)”, “I Heard a fly Buzz—When I Died—(465)“ and “Because I could not stop for Death—(712)”.
Similar to Shakespeare, Dickinson choses to put into use the iambic pentameter. The use of the meter enhances the poem, enabling the reader to go through the text with an easy rhythm in which one can digest the passage. “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died” is a very complex poem, that may be difficult to analyze, but by breaking the poem apart piece by piece, using the iambic pentameter, analyzation becomes much easier. “I heard /a Fly /buzz - when /I died -/” (1) the pentameter stresses heard, fly, when, and died. Using those clues it is noted that the speaker is perhaps no longer living, based on the fact that he or she said “when” and “died”, which is past tense.the next three lines “The Still/ness in/ the Room/, Was like/ the Still/ness in/ the Air -/, Between /the Heaves/ of
Emily Dickinson became legendary for her preoccupation with death. All her poems contain stanzas focusing on loss or loneliness, but the most striking ones talk particularly about death, specifically her own death and her own afterlife. Her fascination with the morose gives her poems a rare quality, and gives us insight into a mind we know very little about. What we do know is that Dickinson’s father left her a small amount of money when she was young. This allowed her to spend her time writing and lamenting, instead of seeking out a husband or a profession. Eventually, she limited her outside activities to going to church. In her early twenties, she began prayed and worshipped on her own. This final step to total seclusion clearly fueled her obsession with death, and with investigating the idea of an afterlife. In “Because I could not stop for Death”, Dickinson rides in a carriage with the personification of Death, showing the constant presence of death in her life. Because it has become so familiar, death is no longer a frightening presence, but a comforting companion. Despite this, Dickinson is still not above fear, showing that nothing is static and even the most resolute person is truly sure of anything. This point is further proven in “I heard a Fly buzz”, where a fly disrupts the last moment of Dickinson’s life. The fly is a symbol of death, and of uncertainty, because though it represents something certain—her impending death—it flies around unsure with a “stumbling buzz”. This again illustrates the changing nature of life, and even death. “This World is not Conclusion” is Dickinson’s swan song on the subject of afterlife. She confirms all her previous statements, but in a more r...
Dickinson’s poem 465 is interesting, but also gruesome because it transforms a small, disregarded fly into the figure of death itself. It is interesting to see that the fly’s wing cuts the speaker off from the light until she cannot “see to see.” The fly is a minor character that does not gain any future power or importance, and its final disconnecting act is performed “With Blue—uncertain stumbling Buzz—.” One could also assume that this fly could potentially represent the speaker’s inability to hold onto their spirituality, faith, or hope, while in the process of facing death. The speaker may succeed in willing away their possessions, but they appear distracted by the idea that not all of them are “assignable”, and this potentially means their spirit or soul. According to Michael Ryan, this fly stands between the speaker and the “light.” The poem does not really state that all hope is lost, especially since the speaker has the ability to write a poem
Emily Dickinson, a poet that was never truly heard until after death. Life is not always what you think it will be and sometimes your words are worth more after your gone. “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died,” and “Because I could not stop for Death” both poems engrossed on the subject of death. It is ironic and humorous; that after her death is when people began to read her poetry. Emily Dickinson was somewhat of a hermit so many people had not read her poetry until long after it was wrote; for she did not publish it herself. These poems are noticeably similar focusing on the subject of death, which is also the subject that makes them different. “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died,” is completely focused on death in a physical state; and “Because I could not stop for Death” focuses on death as a spiritual journey: The poems both present the existence of an afterlife, the speaker is dead and yet their voice is heard.
In the poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” Emily Dickinson portrays death as a polite gentleman who ushers people into the afterlife. The poem’s opening lines reveal death to be the driver of a carriage who stopped for the narrator of the poem. The narrator and death travel alone passing by several scenes of everyday life ending the journey when the carriage stops at a home. The imagery and symbols within this poem paint a picture of a calm activity that is ordinary and expected, starting with the deliberate slow pace and intimacy of the poem.
Emily Dickinson had a fascination with death and mortality throughout her life as a writer. She wrote many poems that discussed what it means not only to die, but to be dead. According to personal letters, Dickinson seems to have remained agnostic about the existence of life after death. In a letter written to Mrs. J. G. Holland, Emily implied that the presence of death alone is what makes people feel the need for heaven: “If roses had not faded, and frosts had never come, and one had not fallen here and there whom I could not waken, there were no need of other Heaven than the one below.” (Bianchi 83). Even though she was not particularly religious, she was still drawn to the mystery of the afterlife. Her poetry is often contemplative of the effect or tone that death creates, such as the silence, decay, and feeling of hopelessness. In the poem “I died for beauty,” Dickinson expresses the effect that death has on one's identity and ability to impact the world for his or her ideals.
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born on 10th December, 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. As a young child, she showed a bright intelligence, and was able to create many recognizable writings. Many close friends and relatives in Emily’s life were taken away from her by death. Living a life of simplicity and aloofness, she wrote poetry of great power: questioning the nature of immortality and death. Although her work was influenced by great poets of the time, she published many strong poems herself. Two of Emily Dickinson’s famous poems, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” and “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died”, are both about life’s one few certainties, death, and that is where the similarities end.
...e describing a sort of spiritual death, since she talks about the fly cutting her off form the light, which could represent God. This interpretation has some difficulties, however, since family members probably would not be present during a spiritual death. (Dickinson 1146)
Emily Dickinson stands out from her contemporaries by discussing one of man's inevitable fears in an unconventional way: death. In two of her poems, "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died" and "Because I could not stop for Death," Dickinson expresses death in an unforeseen way. Although Dickinson portrays death in both of these poems, the way that she conveys the experience is quite different in each poem. Dickinson reveals death as a grim experience, with no glimpse of happiness once one's life is over in "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died." In contrast to this, Dickinson consoles the reader by characterizing death as a tranquil journey in "Because I could not stop for Death." However, despite this difference, Dickinson seduces and catches the reader off guard by speaking of death in an unconventional way. Emily Dickinson masters describing a traumatic human event in the most mundane terms, with the help of literary devices such as imagery and language.
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.
Throughout Emily Dickinson’s poetry there is a reoccurring theme of death and immortality. The theme of death is further separated into two major categories including the curiosity Dickinson held of the process of dying and the feelings accompanied with it and the reaction to the death of a loved one. Two of Dickinson’s many poems that contain a theme of death include: “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” and “After great pain, a formal feeling comes.”