I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died
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 was witnessed, I do not know.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 Window’s failed, and then
I could not see to see.
Emily Dickinson’s “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” stands as a profound exploration of the moment of death, offering a unique and often unsettling perspective on life’s final transition. This poem invites readers into the intimate, sensory experience of a speaker on their deathbed, challenging conventional notions of what such a moment entails. It is a masterclass in capturing the profound through the mundane, making it a compelling subject for literary study and a memorable piece of English literature.
Summary and Central Idea of “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”
This remarkable poem captures the final moments of a speaker’s life, detailing the sensory experiences and emotional atmosphere surrounding their death. The central idea revolves around the unexpected intrusion of the ordinary into the extraordinary, specifically how a common housefly disrupts the solemn, anticipated grandeur of dying. Instead of a grand, spiritual revelation, the speaker’s final perception is dominated by the mundane buzz of an insect, leading to a quiet, almost anticlimactic fade into oblivion.
The poem opens with the speaker already deceased, recounting the events from a post-mortem perspective. The room is described with an intense stillness, likened to the calm before a storm, as loved ones gather, their eyes dry from weeping, bracing for the final breath. The speaker has made peace with earthly affairs, having “willed my Keepsakes, Signed away” their possessions. However, the anticipated arrival of a divine “King” or a momentous spiritual event is met with uncertainty: “When the King was witnessed, I do not know.” Instead, a fly interposes itself, its “Blue, uncertain, stumbling Buzz” becoming the focal point. This small, irritating sound ultimately precedes the speaker’s complete loss of sight and consciousness, marking the definitive end of their perception.
In-depth Analysis of “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”
Dickinson masterfully crafts an atmosphere of anticipation and then subverts it, using vivid imagery and precise language to convey the speaker’s journey from life to death.
The Stillness and Anticipation of Death
The poem immediately establishes a solemn, almost suffocating atmosphere. The opening lines set the scene from the perspective of someone who has already passed, looking back at their final moments:
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,
This “Stillness” is not peaceful but rather a tense, heavy quiet, compared to the charged calm before a tempest. It suggests an impending, powerful event. The presence of grieving loved ones further emphasizes the gravity of the situation:
The Eyes around had wrung them dry,
And Breaths were gathering firm,
For that last Onset,
The “wrung them dry” eyes indicate profound sorrow that has exhausted itself, while “Breaths were gathering firm” suggests a collective holding of breath, a shared moment of intense expectation for the final “Onset” of death. There is an expectation of something grand, perhaps a spiritual revelation or the arrival of a divine presence, often referred to as “the King.” However, this expectation is immediately undermined by the speaker’s uncertainty:
When the King was witnessed, I do not know.
This line introduces a crucial element of ambiguity and doubt regarding the traditional religious or spiritual experience of death, setting the stage for the poem’s unconventional climax.
The Mundane Interruption: The Fly
Following the preparations for death, including the speaker’s final arrangements for their possessions, the poem introduces the pivotal, yet utterly ordinary, element:
I willed my Keepsakes, Signed away
What portion of me be
Assignable, and then it was
There interposed a Fly.
The word “interposed” is key here, highlighting how the fly inserts itself, disrupting the solemnity and the anticipated spiritual moment. This small, insignificant creature becomes the central focus, diverting attention from the profound transition to the trivial. The fly’s description further emphasizes its intrusive and somewhat irritating nature:
With Blue, uncertain, stumbling Buzz
Between the Light, and me
The “Blue” perhaps refers to the iridescent sheen of a fly or a sense of melancholy. Its “uncertain, stumbling Buzz” contrasts sharply with the expected majesty of death, underscoring the clash between the sublime and the ordinary. The fly positions itself “Between the Light, and me,” symbolically obstructing the speaker’s view of any potential heavenly light or final clarity, instead casting a shadow of the mundane.
The Final Fade into Oblivion
The fly’s buzz is not just an interruption; it is the final sensory experience before the complete cessation of perception. The poem concludes with a stark, unsettling depiction of death’s finality:
And then the Window’s failed, and then
I could not see to see.
“The Window’s failed” is a powerful metaphor for the eyes losing their function, signifying the irreversible loss of sight and, by extension, all sensory input. The repetition of “and then” creates a sense of inevitability and a gradual, yet swift, descent into darkness. The final phrase, “I could not see to see,” is profoundly chilling. It suggests not just the inability to physically see, but also the loss of the capacity for understanding, insight, or even existence itself. The speaker’s journey ends not with a grand revelation, but with a quiet, almost absurd, fade to black, underscored by the lingering memory of a fly’s buzz.
Literary Devices in “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”
Emily Dickinson’s unique poetic style is evident throughout the poem, employing various literary devices to achieve its distinctive tone and impact.
- Imagery: Dickinson uses vivid sensory details to create a palpable atmosphere. Examples include “The Stillness in the room” and “The Eyes around had wrung them dry,” which evoke a strong sense of quiet grief and anticipation. The “Blue, uncertain, stumbling Buzz” provides a precise auditory and visual image of the fly.
- Simile: A direct comparison using “like” or “as” helps to explain the intensity of the moment. The line “The Stillness in the room / Was like the Stillness in the Air, / Between the Heaves of Storm,” compares the quiet before death to the tense calm preceding a natural disaster, emphasizing its charged nature.
- Onomatopoeia: The word “Buzz” directly imitates the sound of the fly, grounding the poem in a concrete sensory experience and making the fly’s presence more immediate and intrusive.
- Alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds adds a musical quality and emphasis. For instance, the “b” sound in “Blue, uncertain, stumbling Buzz” draws attention to the fly’s disruptive presence.
- Consonance: The repetition of consonant sounds within or at the end of words creates a sense of unity and mood. The repeated “s” sound in “Stillness in the room / Was like the Stillness” reinforces the quiet, almost hissing atmosphere.
- Enjambment: The continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line to the next without a pause creates a flowing rhythm and can emphasize certain words. An example is “I heard a Fly buzz, when I died, / The Stillness in the room,” which connects the fly’s sound directly to the room’s atmosphere.
- Symbolism: The most prominent symbol is the Fly itself. It represents the mundane, the trivial, and the earthly distractions that can intrude upon even the most profound and sacred moments. It also symbolizes the unexpected, perhaps even absurd, nature of death’s finality, contrasting sharply with the expected spiritual grandeur. The “King” symbolizes a divine presence, ultimate judgment, or a spiritual guide, whose uncertain arrival highlights the poem’s questioning of traditional death narratives. “The Light” can symbolize life, consciousness, or a spiritual afterlife, which the fly obstructs.
- Personification: Giving human qualities or actions to inanimate objects or abstract ideas. While “the King” could be a divine being, its “witnessed” status gives it a human-like presence. The “Window’s failed” personifies the eyes, attributing a human action of failure to a physical organ, emphasizing the loss of function.
- Capitalization: Dickinson famously capitalized nouns not typically capitalized, such as “Stillness,” “Air,” “Heaves,” “Storm,” “Eyes,” “Breaths,” “Onset,” “King,” “Keepsakes,” “Fly,” “Blue,” and “Light.” This technique draws attention to these words, elevating their significance and often imbuing them with symbolic weight or abstract meaning.
Poetic Devices and Structure in “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”
Dickinson’s structural choices contribute significantly to the poem’s unique impact.
- Stanza Form: The poem is structured into three stanzas: an initial octet (eight lines) followed by two quatrains (four lines each). This departure from a consistent quatrain structure, particularly the extended first stanza, allows for a more detailed setup of the scene and the speaker’s initial observations before the fly’s intervention.
- Meter: Dickinson often employed a variation of Common Meter (also known as ballad stanza), which alternates between iambic tetrameter (four iambs per line) and iambic trimeter (three iambs per line). While not perfectly regular, lines like “I heard a Fly buzz, when I died” (four stresses) and “The Stillness in the room” (three stresses) demonstrate this rhythmic pattern, giving the poem a hymn-like or song-like quality that contrasts with its unsettling subject matter.
- Rhyme Scheme and Slant Rhyme: The poem does not follow a strict, perfect rhyme scheme. Instead, Dickinson frequently uses Slant Rhyme (also called near rhyme or imperfect rhyme), where words have similar but not identical sounds. For example, “room” and “Storm” in the first stanza, or “me” and “see” in the final stanza. This deliberate use of imperfect rhyme creates a subtle musicality while also contributing to the poem’s sense of unease and the disruption of expectations, mirroring the fly’s intrusion into the solemnity of death.
- Punctuation (Dashes): Dickinson’s distinctive use of dashes is a hallmark of her style. While the provided text has been edited to remove some of her original dash usage, in many versions, dashes serve multiple functions: they create pauses, indicate shifts in thought, connect disparate ideas, or emphasize certain words, guiding the reader’s pace and interpretation.
Conclusion
“I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” remains a powerful and enigmatic poem that continues to fascinate readers. Through its stark imagery, unconventional perspective, and masterful use of literary and poetic devices, Emily Dickinson challenges our preconceived notions of death. The poem suggests that the final moments of life may not be filled with grand spiritual revelations, but rather with the mundane, the unexpected, and ultimately, a quiet fading into the unknown. It is a testament to Dickinson’s genius that such a small, ordinary creature can become the focal point of one of literature’s most profound meditations on mortality.