"I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died"
by Emily Dickinson
I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
The Stillness in the Room
Was like the Stillness in the Air -
Between the Heaves of Storm -
The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
And Breaths were gathering firm
For that last Onset - when the King
Be witnessed - in the Room -
I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable - and then it was
There interposed a Fly -
With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
Between the light - and me -
And then the Windows failed - and then
I could not see to see -
Discussion Questions:
1. Analyze this poem! Why would a poem about death be focused on a fly?
1. Here goes - the room was so still and quiet that, as she was dying, she could hear a fly buzzing. Everyone had been crying so much as she was dying that now they had no tears left, and so their breath was steadying as they waited for God to take her to heaven. She had made a will to give away all her keepsakes when she died, and then she noticed the fly. It flew around by the windows, and then everything went dark and she died watching it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's because flies usually buzz around dead things, so it seemed an appropriate thing to write about in a poem about death. (And it's more likely that there would be a fly buzzing around than a vulture).
Nice.
DeleteI think it also sort of highlights the commonplaceness of death. It's as common as a fly buzzing around in a house.
Alrighty, let's do this!
ReplyDeleteOkay, so there were people in the room. The “eyes around” tells us this. “had wrung them dry”, means everyone already had cried so much that their eyes were dry, they weren’t crying anymore. Everyone was steadying themselves for what was quite apparent, the sick person was in her last moments. Last Onset, the last moment. The King, most likely Jesus. The dying person is seeing Jesus, she is seeing Heaven. She has made her will, everything is in order, everyone is quiet, everything is how it should be, and then... A fly. The noise the fly made, was sad, and unsure. The fly buzzed between her and the light of heaven. Then her eyes stopped working. And she couldn’t see anything.
I mean, if I were dying and I heard a fly buzzing, I would just be so happy to get aWAY from this world, and go to heaven. Also, like what I said before, flies like dead things, so naturally we associate them with death. So to have an entire poem about death, devoted to something that it's whole life, is entirely devoted to life (since all flies do all their lives is focus on surviving), and then in order to create new life, becomes devoted to death (because flies lay their eggs in carcasses of dead animals...and people...), is really a thought provoking idea. Another reason she might've written her whole poem focusing on a fly is that when you're dying you're thinking about what? What are you thinking about? Does anyone even know what a person is thinking in their last moments? The person is dying, so probably not, because as it's their last moments, how are they supposed to tell anyone... so the idea of the last thing you think about, the last thing you see in the only place you've ever known, is a fly. It's almost terrifying.
Very good.
DeleteFlies are annoying, right? And distracting. And I agree, if I was in my last moments and there was a fly buzzing around, I would be like, get me out of here already! No more flies ever!
And it's such a little thing, it seems insignificant, but when you are really sick you notice these tiny little things like flies -- so maybe that happens when you die too?