'I Heard a Buzz - When I Died' by Emily Dickson - Literary Analysis Essay

‘I heard a buzz-when I died’ is a poem by Emily Dickson extracted from The Seagull Book of Poems, fourth edition. The poem first published in 1896, might be an interpretation of a traumatic time in the poet’s life. The poem seems to be scrutiny where Miss Emily talks in the third person narrative. It is a simple poem among her series of poems, which reflects on the morbidity of dying with the use of imageries. The dead narrator describes the events which lead to her death. As the poem’s theme is death, the poet adorns the events in the timing of her demise. The narrator is both participant and observer, which means that she is self-divided. The poem vividly manifests sight of her death as an ordinary yet inexpressible enigma of human experience. She creatively explores the paradox. Her tone is precise and very calm. The coolness of the dying speaker aids the readers to comprehend the level of acceptance that she had over her demise. The tone is robotic, one that can be expected from a dead person who has no emotion. Emily Dickson, in the poem, uses literal devices such as symbolism, personification, and metaphors to exemplify that the only escape from the stresses of life is death (Kelly, 465).

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Flies are brutes which eat on carrions. It is a cruel and ironic admonisher of the nemesis of a person’s dead body after they pass on, which is contrary to the traditional Christian belief regarding the holiness that exists between life and death. Neither does God nor the Angels come for the soul of a dead person; instead, it is a mere fly that comes, and then the entire feeling changes and there’s darkness and stupor to the readers (Gale, 18).

In the first stanza, the poet briefs us that she is in a room that is very silent based on the most vital element of the poem, which is the death scene, while she waits for her death. The poet describes the serenity between the ‘heaves’ that suggest turbulence has occurred at the moment and that more turbulence will follow it. It is a moment of waiting, a moment of anticipation. The witnesses of her death are silent, and the air is still, but the fly is buzzing. The poet repeats the word ‘stillness’ two times, while capitalism, showing the emphasis and the robust emotion that the poet feels. Nevertheless, amidst all that stillness, she can still hear the buzzing of a fly, which interferes with the calm and further annoys her. That is why the poet says, ‘I heard a fly buzz, when I died,’ to convey the intrusion of the certitude of her death (Kelly, 465).

We are still in the room, in the second stanza, but the poet does not talk of the fly but instead talks of the people that are witnessing her last moment of life. How she breathes indicates ‘that last onset’ is about to take place. The ‘last onset’ is an oxymoron, where onset means the beginning and last means an end. The people around her have stopped crying over her state and are now making preparations for her death. It indicates that she is ready to reunite with the ‘King’ who is in heaven. There is some tension for quite a while, felt in the stillness that everyone around her displays. Other than the crying and the weeping from those around her, she maintains her inner serenity. Tension arises as she accepts her state, and strengthens the composure surrounding her death (Kelly, 465).

The thirds and the fourth stanza bring the fly into the picture again. In stanza three, when the narrator feels she is prepared and is giving away her heritage and her wills, without being sorrowful and exhibiting traces of freight or sorrow, the fly reappears again. The fly, which is in an intruder in the setting, in a needless and weird form, breaks her tranquility once again. The composed nature of the poem is interrupted by the interruption from the gross little bug. Even though the bug is not a constant image in the poem, it comes in an utmost way. The poet uses ‘interposed,’ a strong word that changes the tone of the poem and makes the atmosphere less comfortable (Kelly, 465).

The poet describes the fly in detail, for the first time, in the fourth stanza. The narrator uses the words ‘Blue-uncertain-stumbling buzz’ to give an image of the fly and its nuisance. An extensive depiction of the fly in terms of its movement and color goes along with the irritating sound. The poet does not write a sentence where the she delineates the fly; on the contrary, she only uses a few words, which we use to create an image in our minds. Additionally, the idiom ‘uncertain’ is unquestionably a different image of her disposition towards her fate (Dickson et al. 591). When a fly, which is known for eating dead bodies, is associated with death and decay, the ‘intruder’s’ elucidation of the progress of the narrator towards the solace of light is evil. Immediately the fly ‘interposes’ between her and the gleam, the narrator closes her eyes and passes on. In other words, the instance that she dies, it does not happen comfortably, which is an expectation out of the poem’s stillness. Even though the death forth comes, the actual demise of the narrator ensues abruptly. Additionally, throughout the poem, the eyesight of the narrator has been centralizing, narrowing, and closing on the fly (Gale, 20).

All the lines in the poem are written in an iambic meter. The lines are divided into two-syllable blocks while stressing on the second syllable. The length of the lines and the stanzas are regular. There are four stanzas, and each stanza has four lines. The first line and the third line of each stanza have eight syllables each. The second line and the fourth line all have six syllables. The poet gives the poem a rhythmic, smooth feel. A rhyme scheme is also notably vital in the poem. There is no specific rhyme scheme in the first stanza, but until the last stanza, there is a rhyme pattern of ABCB. That is a clear indication that verifiable death comes after a literal rhyme. The rhyme of the poem finalizes the death of the poet in a manner that makes it a vital part of the poem, by putting more emphasis on it. The poet uses many hyphens, which might seem random but are another crucial strategy. A person dying has regular pauses in their speech. The way the poem forces one to pause over and over again, even in the wired instances, insights the reader with a sense of definite slow anticipation (Dickson et al. 591).

The author uses ambiguity purposefully to propose the different possible answers regarding the divinity of the universe and the aftermath of a demise, which could never get answers. The narrator offers some interpretations in the poem because there is no wrong or right perspective of viewing the poem’s message since there is no wrong or correct answer to the world’s mysteries. The reader comprehends the message in the poem, and whether positive or negative, it is neither wrong nor right. The poet creates her writings to give answers to the situations presented, which can never be answered (Gale, 21).

The identity of the speaker is one of the mysterious elements of the poem. The poem is in the first-person narration, which is announced by the very first word. However, from the narrator’s establishment, the poem enlightens something that is deeply paradoxical. It is evident in how the narrator explains they are talking about the moment of their death. To write or to speak means one is engaging in that action, and for one to do so, they must be alive and enthusiastic. Nonetheless, the narrator is also dead, so the reader needs to understand that it is logically impossible. The poet does not talk about the current situation because she only wants to emphasize her dying moment. If it could be possible to communicate with the dead, the first thing one would like to know is how it feels to be no more. Nevertheless, Dickson does not offer any information of the sort but instead seems preoccupied with the disturbing presence of the fly, endlessly (Gale, 25).

The paradoxical state of immortality and mortality, death is an unavoidable occurrence. ‘I heard a fly buzz, when I died’ is a paradox that describes the atmosphere and the scene when someone passes on. Dickson begins with the mention of the fly’s sound, which was filling the silent atmosphere at the time of her death. Even though it could also be metaphoric, it is also a paradox since one cannot hear anything when she dies. The poet vividly describes the abruptness of her death, while at the same time using the buzz of the fly to describe the sound that precedes it (Gale, 27).

Conclusively, the poem symbolizes death’s nature; a very encounter one has to experience when they pass on. Human beings believe that they are superior compared to other living creatures and have a feeling that their deaths need acknowledgement with more honors. The demises of humans are more or less significant as compared to that of other animals. Death is a natural occurrence. The poem represents the uncertain feeling within the poet. Emily Dickson could merely write a poem about discerning herself going to heaven, but did not consider that death was just as honorable, many people would believe and, finally, she ‘could not see to see.’

Works Cited

Dickinson, Emily, and Thomas H. Johnson. The Poems of Emily Dickinson. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, (591), 2013. Print. (Dickson et al. 591)

Gale, Cengage L. A Study Guide for Emily Dickinson's "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died.-" Farmington Hills: Gale, Cengage Learning, (30) 2016. Print.

Kelly, Joseph. The Seagull Book of Poems. , (465) 2018. Print. Norton.