I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died by Emily Dickinson

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Setting
Characters

Introduction

Analyzing literary works a lot of attention is brought to dialogues, descriptions, and the climax of the work. Long moments of the works chronological time can be used in subsidiary descriptions to make the reader feel the depth of the moment. On contrary, when analyzing poems, especially short poems, every word is valued as through the process of interpretation deep meanings could lie in the sense of a couple of sentences. In that context, the poem I heard a fly buzz when I died by Emily Dickinson is a perfect example when a short poem reveals the authors vision on such a complex theme as death. This paper analyzes this poem in terms of the use of setting and character.

Setting

Dickinson starts right away by establishing the setting of the poem. Such contrast in the actions I heard a fly buzz when I died takes the reader visualizing a deathbed, and assumingly a female person referring to the author. The emphasis on the absence of any sounds in this room presents a depressing feeling of sadness that is visually interconnected between the absence of movements in the air and the paralyzes of the protagonist. The heaves in Between the heaves of the storm are used by the author to emphasize the waiting mode of all the people in the room. It can be seen that the author uses only small directional marks, whereas the readers imagination is completing the horrifying picture of the dying person. Such directions can be seen in mentioning The eyes beside had wrung them dry, a reference from which it can be understood that the process reached its final stage when the people that surround the moribund have accepted the implacable outcome. In that agonizing waiting moment, only such a small detail as a fly buzz interrupts this horrifying, even gruesome atmosphere.

At the end of the poem:

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;

With the reference to such an unordinary blue buzz, the reader can feel that this is a remark of the soul leaving the body. Such remark can be sensed also in the way that this fly is heard only by the narrator. Thus, feeling the approaching death has been visualized by the narrator as a buzz of a fly that interrupted the stillness and calmness of the setting signifying the moment of death.

Characters

Assessing the characters of the poem, it could be sensed that the fly is the main participator. Being mentioned in three stanzas out of four, the author gave the fly and the buzz a specific significance, which can be left for the readers free interpretation. The role of the dying narrator is limited to the observance and the process of recalling what he had time to finish. This process can be stereotyped as the only thing that is left to do for a dying person. However, the process of remembering the willed keepsakes can also refer to the last connections to the material world being cut. The role of the people witnessing the final moments is limited. They can be considered as a decoration, additional detail of the setting in which the dying and the fly relation are the main part of the poem where the death is the climax. In describing the characters in the poem, Dickinson did not assign a specific significance to the characters, except the fly, rather outlining the importance of the transitional processes. Such transitional processes can be seen in the last onset, where the contrast between the end and the beginning, can refer to the dying transferred from the material world into eternity.

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I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died by Emily Dickinson

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