Emily Dickinson's I Heard A Fly Buzz-When I Died

The poems “Because I could not stop for Death” and “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” by Emily Dickinson both describe death and a journey one takes to get there. In “Because I could not stop for Death” the speaker tells of someones journey of death that did not see it coming and had no time to slow down to notice it. While in the poem “I heard a Fly buzz-when I died” the speaker describes ones journey to death that aware it is coming, someone who is prepared and waiting for it to happen. Death can arrive in many different forms, it is different for everyone and nobody knows or can predict accurately when or how it will come no matter how prepared or not prepared someone is.

Loss is an experience unique to each individual and James McAuley and Gwen Harwood explore this in their poems “Pietà” and “In the Park”. The free verse “Pietà” bears witness to the physical loss a father endures on the anniversary of his son’s death, while in contrast, the sonnet “In the Park” explores the loss of self-identity that a mother feels in her role as a parent. The physical loss that accompanies the death of a loved one is depicted in “Pietà” when the narrator recounts how his son came metaphorically “Early into the light” of life, “Then died” one year prior. By accepting the part that death plays in one’s life, he acknowledges that “no one (is) to blame” for the loss, however, this resignation does not console his anguish. Just as he is consumed by his grief, so too is the mother in Harwood’s narrative but her pain stems from a loss of self-identity due to motherhood.

Andrew Aguilar Judy Kirchner English 5/4/16 Assignment 9 Literature-Written In the poem, “I Heard A fly Buzz” is by Emily Dickinson. It uses the poems meter by using the iambic meter. They made the syllables into 2 syllable parts and have the second syllables they emphasis.

This topic is something that I have struggled with throughout my life. Losing someone in your life, no matter how close or how distant you feel, is a traumatic experience that can have a lasting impact on anyone’s life. The most recent event like this in my life was the passing of my great – grandmother. She was the rock of the family, and the glue that held a very divisive and rocky family together. During her working years, it was not uncommon for her to be working at least three jobs to provide for her family and everyone that she loved.

Although it is negative, Dickinson’s poem displays the reality of grieving that can be summarized for now with one line from it: “First–Chill–then Stupor– then the letting go –”(Dickinson 13). Although this quote may not make sense to someone who has not read the poem it will be explained

When my great grandma died I was very sad, but her death brought out all the memories me and my family had with her. Opening Christmas presents, celebrating her 100th birthday, and visiting her at her home. Those were all such great memories. It made me sad to think she was gone, but she made me appreciate the more time I have with my family. Time is

In “If you were coming in the Fall” by Emily Dickinson, she states that she will wait any extent of time as long as she will be with her lover again. This poem demonstrates how the separation from a loved one can consume you. No matter the amount of time, she still constantly thinks about being with her lover again. To establish the meaning of the poem, Dickinson uses poetic devices. The three poetic devices I found that were most prevalent in the poem were repetition, simile, and tone.

“Because I Could Not Stop For Death” by Emily Dickinson is a poem about death being personified in an odd and imaginative way. The poet has a personal encounter with Death, who is male and drives a horse-carriage. They go on a mysterious journey through time and from life to death to an afterlife. The poem begins with its first line being the title, but Emily Dickinson’s poems were written without a title and only numbered when published, after she died in 1886.

Disillusioned at the moment of death, the speaker in Emily Dickinson’s poem #465, plummets from her majestic spiritual expectations into the lowly position of simply being a carcass. Distracted by the anticipation of an impending ethereal experience, the speaker fails to recognize the significance of the fly at the moment of her death. Dickinson’s preliminary placement of the fly, “I heard a Fly buzz — when I died” in the beginning sentence offers a form of foreshadowing as well as emphasizes it’s roll (1). The speaker is encompassed by the ideas of her spiritual expectations and is waiting, “between the Heaves of Storm” for a heavenly excursion (4). However, the sound of the fly, an animal devoted to consuming the dead, brings reality to the audience that the speaker is simply a carcass waiting to be devoured.

Throughout her poem, “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –,” the speaker of the poem is dying in her deathbed surrounded by loved ones, and how she is experiencing a memory of death and how she is enduring it. As the people at the deathbed are “gathering firm” around her, they are in an understanding that she will die and are waiting for her demised (Dickinson). The “eyes” of the beloved ones were flowing of tears and crying to the dying loved one of the deathbed (Dickinson). Throughout Dickinson’s poem, no happiness is brought upon inside the poem because all that the author sees the theme of death as sadness and

My dad was picking my brother and I up from school. We noticed how sad he looked; he was on the edge of tears. When we asked what was wrong he broke down. He told us our grandfather, his father, passed away. I’ll always remember that moment.

The attitudes to grief over the loss of a loved one are presented in two thoroughly different ways in the two poems of ‘Funeral Blues’ and ‘Remember’. Some differences include the tone towards death as ‘Funeral Blues’ was written with a more mocking, sarcastic tone towards death and grieving the loss of a loved one, (even though it was later interpreted as a genuine expression of grief after the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral” in 1994), whereas ‘Remember’ has a more sincere and heartfelt tone towards death. In addition, ‘Funeral Blues’ is entirely negative towards death not only forbidding themselves from moving on but also forbidding the world from moving on after the tragic passing of the loved one, whilst ‘Remember’ gives the griever

The poems that we will discuss are all explored by the theme of death like "War Photographer" by Carol Ann Duffy, "a Mother In A Refugee Camp" by Chinua Achebe, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas, "Piano" by D.H Lawrence, "My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning and finally "Poem at Thirty Nine" by Alice Walker. These poems all portray the theme of death and loss and how the people that get affected adapt to the loss of their loved ones and their family. Firstly, I will discuss how these poems portray the theme of death within a family, a great example is "A Mother in a refugee camp", where the mother is affected by the death of her son and the suffering of her loved one "child could touch her tenderness for a son" this shows

The poem is narrated by the voice of the dead. The text is related in a very personal manner, the poem being

I always knew deep down, that my mum was not going to make it; however, knowing this did not make it any easier. She died on December 4th 2008. I could not come to terms with her death. Not only was I left with many questions but I also felt like I should have spent more time with her.