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The fly is a gruesome image because flies gather around decaying corpses. However, while this image is startling, it is still shocking that the poet is not more in shock of dying, of being dead, or witnessing just a fly upon her death.
The poem consists of four stanzas, which include slant rhymes on the second and fourth lines. The lines alternate between six and eight syllables. Dashes in the poem force the reader to slow down and take time to read each phrase. The tone of the poem is lyrical but the message of it is somber. Dickinson uses a simile in the poem In the line, "The Stillness in the Room / Was like the Stillness in the Air" (2-3). This image is important because it reveals the poet's notion that there is nothing special that awaits us after death. The still air is a stark contrast to the...
The poet is stating that nothing happens when we die, which is a disturbing thought. We find a metaphor when the poet says, "the windows failed, and then / I could not see to see" (16). The poet indicates that while she was alive, she could see things but in death, all is dark. The poem closes with the "blue -- uncertain stumbling buzz -- " (13) that separates the poet from the light. The poem concludes with the notion that death in not a glorious event but rather an empty one that closes in on a fly and its buzz, surrounded by blackness followed by nothing.
Work Cited
Dickinson, Emily. "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died." An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Sylvan
Barnet, et al. 13th ed.…
Work Cited
Dickinson, Emily. "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died." An Introduction to Literature. Ed. Sylvan
Barnet, et al. 13th ed. New York: Harper Collins. 2004.
heard a Fly buzz" by Emily Dickinson In her poem "I heard a Fly buzz," Emily Dickinson explores the moment just before the death of the narrator, as she watches a fly buzz about in the final moments before sight fails her. In comparing the human experience to the buzzing-about of a fly in the face of a mortal curtain, Dickinson presents a simultaneously clinical and emotionally subjective consideration of
It also shows that she is not worth a holy visit; she is just another person who has died that day. This also shows that her expectations and assumptions were larger than life and did not really have anything to do with reality. It says that she had a high opinion of herself and her importance, and that she was disappointed that her grand dreams did not come true.
Emily Dickinson's poem, "I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died," the setting is the death bed of the speaker, in the nineteenth century, with family and friends gathered around. The line "The Stillness in the Room" eludes that it takes place indoors after the narrator has died. The background of the poem revolves around the preparations for death. The plot is the transition from life to death. The
It is impossible for science to "overtake" the light but not impossible for humans to experience it. While light is pleasing, it is not lasting for the poet. When it is no longer present, what remains is something that is almost opposite to light. The poet describes the experience as a "quality of loss / Affecting our content, / As Trade had suddenly encroached / Upon a Sacrament" (17-20).
Emily graduated from high school and attended college for one year (Mt. Holyoke Female Seminary) which was fairly unusual for women at that time. She remained at home in her parents' house all her life, caring for her invalid mother and becoming increasingly reclusive. It is from this quiet reclusive lifestyle that the many poems for which Emily Dickinson is so well-known today sprang, among them "Because I could
Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson In many of her poems Emily Dickinson explores the theme of death. Death is the ultimate experience and reveals the truth about the nature of God and the state of the human soul. Dickinson personifies death in guises, from suitor to tyrant, and her attitude toward death varies from poem to poem, drawing no absolute conclusion about death's nature. The poet portrays death