Emily Dickenson Essay

Emily Dickinson was likely influenced by epitaphs on tombstones. She uses floral language like Frances Osgood, and did not write the way the general public thought women should write, like the way of Helen Hunt Jackson. It is possible that is the reason she did not publish her works (Petrino). In the poem ‘I heard a fly buzz when I died’, Emily Dickinson uses metaphors in order to say that everyone dies and it is not always the most desirable way to die.

When Emily Dickinson was still in her teenage years, she began to experience pain all around her. Life and death became a prevalent topic as Ryan introduces, “Her bedroom from the age of sixteen to twenty-four overlooked the village graveyard; repeatedly, in the close community of Amherst, she was privy to the loss of children, parents, spouses, inmates”. By the time she was older, her poetry was very eloquent and thought out. In her poem “I heard a Fly Buzz- when I died-”, also referred to as 465, she demonstrated her abilities to think and express feelings well beyond her years (15). Through the course of the poem one reading without analysis will understand that a fly buzzed in the room while the narrator encountered death. However,

Emily Dickinson was fascinated by death and immortality; in her poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz-- When I Died--" she reveals her insight on a shared but unknown experience. A speaker, who is describing his or her death from beyond the grave, narrates the poem, which can be interpreted with either heavily Christian in its symbolism, or as the literal description of the dying experience. Dickinson uses the poetry elements of symbolism, imagery and point of view to give us an ironic poem, about dying and the afterlife, which leaves the reader unsure of what's on the other side of death. There is a disagreement in the literary world over the meaning of the fly, its symbolism and relationship to the speaker in the poem (Ruby 139). Dickinson might have used the fly in order to showcase that the dying speaker was still aware of the physical world but his or her senses were fading as the body surrenders to death "With Blue--uncertain stumbling Buzz--" (Line 13).

Have you ever lost someone in your life who was extremely important to you? Did you feel like once the grieving was over the world continued to move on? In the poem [I heard a fly buzz] by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson ponders the topic of death and the impact it has on its surroundings. The poem takes place from beyond the grave in which the narrator is in a silent room interrupted by the buzzing of a fly: “I heard a fly buzz/when I died”(Line 1). Many people are in the room mourning over the loss of the dead person: “The Eyes around--had wrung them dry/Breaths were gathering firm” (Lines 5-6). It is assumed that God is taking her away to her afterlife: “/when the King/be witnessed in the room.” Through point of view, imagery, and diction, Dickinson conveys the speaker’s feelings towards death and how people react to it, revealing the beliefs that people will never truly

Emily Dickinson speaks on the uncertainty of the afterlife in her poems "Why — do they shut Me out of Heaven?" and "I heard a Fly buzz — when I died —" through the motif of death, religious allusions, and the creation of a sense discomfort in the reader. The motif

Her style of writing and the poems that she published often follow themes of self-awareness, immortality, death, love, nature, and pain. Emily Dickinson’s poems, “I heard a fly buzz when I died” and “Because I could not stop for Death,” dramatically exhibit a theme of death, which can be supported through her use of literary devices and symbolic interpretations. Dickinson’s poem,

In the poems “Because I Could Not Stop For Death” and “If I Should Die”, Emily Dickinson uses appealing imagery to reveal that life continues on after one’s death. To begin, in the poem “Because I Could Not Stop For Death”, the narrator “[passes] the School, where children strove at recess ” on the way to her grave(Dickinson 9/10). The imagery of the children playing shows that they are still carrying on with their lives, even after her death. Also in the poem “If I Should Die”, the narrator tells her friend that even after she dies “time will gurgle on, and the morn should beam” (Dickinson 3/4). The pleasing sight of the constant morning sunrise shows the reader that the days will still pass as usual.

Emily Dickinson’s poem Fr 591 “I heard a Fly buzz,” describes the scene of the speaker’s death in a very obscure way. The poem is entirely located in a single room and the speaker is participating in a common deathbed ritual that would have taken place at that point in time. The room is quiet, many mourners are preparing for the speakers final moments, and the speaker begins to will away all of her material possessions. When the speaker is about to commit to death, a fly interrupts the scene and ultimately stands in the way between the speaker and what she hopes will follow her death, an afterlife. This poem, however, unlike Fr 479, “Because I could not stop for Death,” is focused not on the afterlife that comes after death, but instead is focused on an individual’s moments before death takes place. As for Fr 479, the speaker is riding in a carriage with Death and Immortality as they pass through a town. The horse-drawn carriage is taking the speaker to eternity and the fact that the speaker’s ride with death took place centuries ago, informs the reader that the speaker has been deceased for quite a long time. Though Fr 591 and Fr 479 are two completely different poems, they both have a common theme of death and depict death to be an actual person with human qualities. In both of these poems, the image of the speaker coming into contact with death is present and poetic medium is used in a similar way.

In Emily Dickinson’s poem, “I heard a Fly buzz- when I died-,” she describes the last images she ever saw before she died. One of these final images was of a fly buzzing around her as if she was a carcass. She states, “I heard a fly buzz- when I died-/The Stillness in the Room.” Dickinson describes the dryness of her eyes, yet this fly keeps buzzing around living its little fly life, while she suffers the sting of death. The imagery and atmosphere created by the author’s words matches the circulating scene created by the other two poems.

Emily Dickinson was an eccentric poet that was reclusive and published very few poems in her lifetime. Because I could not stop for Death is about a man taking a woman towards her tombstone where she died. I heard a fly buzz – when I died is a short poem about someone dying and being peace about it, when a disturbing fly enters and ruins her soothing passage into the other world. My life closed twice before its close is a narration of someone who has been through two traumatic events before death and it afraid of a third. Death is the only escape.

When one dwells upon the idea of death, many thoughts can come to mind. These thoughts can include peaceful, scary, inevitable, cold, and many other things. Being one of the only female poets of her time, Emily Dickinson is a profound writer and her poems are intricate works of art. In her poem, “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” Dickinson uses strong diction and imagery to describe the intimacy an individual has with death when it is encountered.

Emily Dickinson's poem "I heard a Fly buzz- when I died" central theme of death is depicted not only through poetic devices, but also through the structuring of her poem. From the way that Dickinson's poem does not have a title to the rhyme scheme of her poem I believe that everything is done deliberately to guide the reader to feel the insecurity that comes with life. Dickinson's choice of words such as "uncertain" and "stumble" support this idea that even at crucial moments there are always going to be things we can't control such as the "interposed fly." At critical moments in people's lives such as being on a deathbed, we are often going to experience mental distractions that remind us that we are human. Dickinson is quick to bring to her

Whether Emily Dickinson is writing about death or love or nature, her style is often highly philosophical. Dickinson’s poem, ‘I heard a Fly buzz’, consists of four quatrains, written in a simple four-line rhyme scheme (abcb), whose lines alternate between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. It highlights her famous usage of the dash, her ability to create imagery with little explanation, and her unique voice. Although it is not entirely difficult to comprehend, it is a piece filled with imagery and figurative language that conceal its meaning, especially in regards to the final stanza. This essay will argue that Dickinson’s use of dashes and enjambments to alter rhythm, a persona that is seemingly ready to die, near rhyme, and immense metonymy help create a parable for the preoccupations that typically surround death.

“I heard a Fly buzz - when I died” is a reaction to the kind of sentimental literature that was popular in the mid- 19th century. Even in a short poem like this, it’s apparent that the speaker was more than capable of digesting, responding to and maybe even making fun of the works of literature.“ I heard a Fly buzz - when I died” , the 591 poems, the title of this poem is extremely clear that it was about the atmosphere of death. Dickinson

The poem "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died," deals with a person who is speaking from somewhere beyond the grave. The speaker tells the story from their final moments just before death, describing the final experiences and sensations before the exact moment of death. The beginning of the poem starts with the speaker already describing his/her death first talking about how they hear the sound of a fly , as it flys through the air in the silent room. As the poem continues the speaker begins to go deeper focusing this time on the things in the room that she is dying in. The poem tells us about the people standing around her, who are somberly preparing themselves for their dying loved one's final moment. She even tells us about giving away the