Emily Dickinson\'s Poem, \"I Heard a Fly

¶ … 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 speaker in the poem, the person who has just died, does not relay their gender or age. The line "I willed my Keepsakes -- Signed away" suggests that the narrator is old enough to have keepsakes and to sign a will. It is obvious that the speaker is observant, calm, aware, and at peace with the situation. Death and the buzz of a fly motivated the narrator to speak. The other characters in the poem are "The Eyes around," or family and friends of the narrator, and "The King," who is considered to be either God or death.

Emily Dickinson was an American poet, born in Massachusetts, in 1830. The gender of the poet does not seem to influence the content of the poem. During this particular historical period, the Women's suffrage movement was strong, religion was an important part of everyday life, and America was becoming the nation we know and live in today.

According to Anderson, the poem "operates in terms of all the standard religious assumptions of her New England, but with a difference. They are explicitly gathered up in one phrase for the moment of death, with distinct Biblical overtones." (233).

The title of the poem, "I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died," alludes directly to the poem's main theme, the last moments of life fading into death. The poem is an answer to the question 'what happens when we die'. Dickinson has effectively reached her audience, conveying the overall purpose of the poem; a trivial, ironic response to dying instead of the typical profound moment many dream of. She wants the reader to feel the quickness of death and the oddity of its last moments.

Dickinson uses the line "And then the Windows failed -- and then I could not see to see" for a frame of reference to the transition into death. It is one of the most descriptive images of the poem. The image appeals to the speaker's physical and spiritual sense of sight as they are dying. The narrator sees more than he or she hears.

Dickinson uses colorful imagery and characterization, with special emphasis on light, color, and sound to describe what it's like to die. She creates musical effect with the "buzzing" or sounds of the fly, describing the sound as "blue" (With Blue -- uncertain stumbling Buzz -- Between the light -- and me --). (Eberwein, 156).