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Word Gems exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity
Emily Dickinson I heard a Fly buzz -- when I died
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
from https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/emily-dickinson/i-heard-a-fly-buzz-when-i-died "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" was written by the American poet Emily Dickinson in 1862, but, as with most Dickinson poems, it was not published during her lifetime. It has since become one of her most famous and one of her most ambiguous poems, talking about the moment of death from the perspective of a person who is already dead. On the one hand, this death seems to follow standard protocol: the speaker is on their deathbed and surrounded by mourners, and their will is squared away. However, the irritating figure of the fly arrives and undermines the seriousness and gravity of the occasion. Though spoken from the great beyond, the poem offers no easy answers about death, instead casting doubt on religious and social comforts.
I could hear a fly buzzing around the room at the moment I died. The room felt very still, like the calm, tense air in between the gusts of a storm. The people gathered around me had cried until they had no tears left, and everyone seemed like they were holding their breath, waiting for my final moment and anticipating the arrival of God in the room. I had signed a will that gave away all my possessions, dividing up all the parts of my life that could be divided up. And then, suddenly, a fly interrupted the proceedings. The fly looked blue and buzzed around the room erratically. It flew in front of the light, blocking it. Then the light from the windows faded away, and I could not see anything at all. “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -” Themes Theme The Mystery of Death “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” attempts to imagine the transition between life and death. While the poem does have questions about whether there is an afterlife, it conveys its uncertainty by focusing on the actual moment of death itself. Told from the perspective of someone who seems to have already died, the poem is mysterious and paradoxical—obviously, no one has yet been able to describe what it feels like to actually die! Dickinson tries to imagine it anyway—and her take is decidedly less sentimental than most, as the speaker’s final moments are interrupted by a buzzing fly. Perhaps this suggests the sheer mundanity of mortality—there is nothing so ordinary as a bug—or that no matter how well one prepares to face the other side, it’s impossible to be ready for something unknowable. Though the speaker is reciting this poem after having died, what the speaker describes takes place just before this, as the speaker is on his or her deathbed. In these final moments, the room and the air are notably filled with “stillness.” This seems to anticipate the stillness of death, and suggests a sort of blurring of the border between these two states—as if the transition between life and death isn’t a sharp jump cut but rather a slow crossfade. Alternatively, maybe the other people in the room are trying to remain still on purpose in order to make the transition from life to death as seamless as possible for the speaker. This, in turn, creates a sort of tension, as everyone is done with the sad part (their “Eyes” have been “wrung dry” of tears), and is waiting with for “the King”—that is, God—to take the speaker away. Except, instead of God arriving to aid with the passage from life to death, there is only the “uncertain, stumbling Buzz” of the fly. The timing of the fly’s arrival suggests that, surprisingly, it might be the ambassador of the underworld. Though some critics see the fly as an emissary of death—the grim reaper, perhaps—it might also just be a literal fly. In that case, it represents the absence of “the King,” undermining any certainties that the speaker might have held on to about the afterlife. Its annoying buzzing sound is darkly funny, preventing the speaker from attaining the state of spiritual contemplation or grace that would seem more fitting for the occasion. In other words, at perhaps the most spiritually significant moment in life, the speaker is distracted by a bug. The fly, then, is a perfect symbol for spiritual doubt, its seemingly aimless airborne wandering suggesting the earthly wondering of the human mind. Indeed, part of the poem’s power comes from the fact the fly is interpretable as both significant and insignificant, symbolic and meaningless. Either way, the moment of death remains shrouded in mystery. Whatever people hope comes after life, they can’t know for sure. Ultimately, then, the poem ends on an inconclusive note, with the “failing” light of the window representing the speaker’s inability to see beyond these last living moments—despite the fact that the speaker seemingly talks from the afterlife. Death remains as unknowable as ever. Describing the speaker’s dying moments, “I heard a Fly buzz - when I died” presents a scene of ritual and ceremony. In essence, the speaker is going through the motions of what people are supposed to do when they die, and the people around the dying speaker are playing their part in this ritual too—gathering solemnly around the speaker’s death bed, crying, and dealing with the will. These last few moments are a revealing commentary on the way people conceive of life itself—but the presence of the fly casts doubts on the priorities and beliefs of human existence. The deathbed scene the speaker describes is like a miniature of humankind’s long-established traditions and customs around death. Religion, family, and the law are all represented here. The speaker and those gathered around the speaker believe in the norms of their world. Loved ones are gathered around, suggesting the importance of human relationships, specifically of family. The crying “Eyes” suggest that life is something to value—and that its loss is worthy of mourning. The speaker hopes for spiritual salvation from “the King,” as is the norm for the speaker's society. Thus the religious institutions of Dickinson's day, so integral to 19th century America and to Dickinson’s poetry, are also represented. And, as though to underscore the importance of earthly possession, the speaker’s final act is to "Sign[] away” his or her “Keepsakes.” This is a reference to the will that passes down all the speaker’s property and possessions—but only what “portion of me be / Assignable” (which subtly casts doubt on whether these “Keepsakes” are all that important). Everything is set up, then, for this to be a kind of picture-perfect death—the mourners are in place and the event is unfolding according to traditions and customs of the time. But it’s then—and explicitly “then” in line 11—that the fly comes into view and earshot. It disturbs this perfect scene in a way that seems ironic, tragically comic, and incredibly well-timed. Flies, of course, are notoriously annoying; the fly, with its meandering flight and high-pitched buzz, undermines the gravity of the situation. It functions almost like a streaker at a serious public event, farcically mocking the occasion. In turn, the presence of the fly questions whether the “keepsakes” really were important—or if maybe it was the un-assignable portion of existence that was important after all. Or perhaps even none of it was important! Indeed, if the pre-death rituals are partly about reassuring the speaker that some part of him or her will continue to exist after death—whether in the afterlife, other peoples’ memories, or physical possessions—the fly disturbs these reassurances too. Flies are often associated with the decay of the human body. They are scavengers, happily feeding on decomposing fruit and flesh. Here, then, the fly is a reminder of what will happen to the speaker’s body once he or she is (presumably) buried. Over time, the physical features that made the speaker recognizable will waste away, leaving only bones. This is a stark reminder of the physical reality of death and seems to undermine what usually gives life meaning, whether that be possessions, beliefs, or interpersonal relationships. Line 1 "I heard a Fly buzz - when I died" opens with an intriguing statement that draws the reader in immediately. The poem recounts a story from an unusual speaker—one who's dead! Instantly, then, the poem feels paradoxical, the speaker offering a faithful account of the moment of death after the fact (even though that is, of course, impossible). In just one short line, then, the poem establishes its main juxtaposition—between life and death mainly, but also between mundanity and profundity. Dying, especially for this speaker (who can reasonably be understood as living/dying in the 19th century, the same as Dickinson), is meant to be a profound and serious occasion. Yet, as the poem will go on to explain, this nagging, annoying fly seems to be literally and metaphorically getting in the way. This first line places the fly front and center in the poem so that the speaker's focus on the fly in turn becomes the reader's. The meter reflects the fly's irritating noise, with two stresses in succession varying the poem's iambic meter almost immediately: I heard | a Fly | buzz - when | I died - The close stresses make the line itself noisier, suggesting the fly's buzz. If instead it was perfectly iambic (such as I heard | a buzz- | ing fly), the line would be far less evocative. As it stands, the poem begins by evoking the disorder the fly creates. The poem's juxtaposition between life and death, and between mundanity and profundity, is also developed by the first line's caesura. On one side of the characteristic Dickinsonian dash there is the fly, and on the other the speaker's death. On one side, life (in the form of the fly)—on the other, death. Symbol The Fly The fly appears at both the beginning and the end of the poem; it seems to be the last thing that the speaker thinks about before dying and, apparently, something the speaker is still obsessing over even after death! The fly is thus undoubtedly important to the poem, but why is open to interpretation. On the one hand, flies have a long-standing association with decay and death. In the Biblical book of Exodus, for example, flies are one of the plagues that wreak havoc on Egypt. The fly's presence is a reminder of bodily decomposition, the gruesome nature of which seems at odds with the hoped-for Christian afterlife. So while the speaker is hoping for a dignified exit, the fly's "interposition" is a reminder of the stark realities of death. Some readings of the poem take the arrival of the fly to be more purposeful, however. That is, the fly is seen as a kind of emissary of death—perhaps the grim reaper himself. Certainly, the fly's timing is impeccable, arriving just at the moment of death (as a grim reaper would). That said, the great power of the fly as a symbol is that, ironically, it might be utterly non-symbolic. Sometimes, that is, a fly is just a fly. To humans, flies are pretty insignificant creatures, both irritating and small. The fly's arrival, then, can also be read as a reminder of a lack of meaning. That is, its insignificance could stand in for the insignificance for human life—precisely the opposite of what the solemn deathbed scene is intended to make the speaker feel. Finally, the fly, though small and irritating, is also very much alive. Perhaps part of the speaker's fascination with it is based on the fact that, once the speaker dies, the fly will carry on flying its "uncertain - stumbling" path around the room. The speaker, then, is confronted with the fact that the world will continue on after the speaker is gone. In the poem’s concluding moments, the speaker describes the window light fading. This plays into a well-established idea of light as symbolic of knowledge and life, and darkness as symbolic of mystery and death. For example, the Christian God creates light in the opening of the Bible's Book of Genesis, thereby enabling the flourishing of all life on earth. Also think of the way the “Enlightenment” is the name for a period of rapid advancement in scientific knowledge. The use of light in the poem here plays on both of these meanings, suggesting the speaker’s passage into death and the mystery therein. It’s also worth noting that it’s the fly that seems to mark this transition from light to darkness, “interpos[ing]” between the speaker and the window light. This is, of course, physically impossible, but represents the arrival of death and perhaps the closing of the speaker’s eyes. It's also interesting that people often conceive of dying as a kind of light; those who have had near-death experiences often mention a bright white light (such as a train coming through a tunnel). Here, the shift is into darkness, suggesting the speaker's uncertainty about what—if anything—comes next. Emily Dickenson's poetry and fame did not appear until after her death. Her poem, I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died, describes, some believe, a near-death experience, offering in poetic terms a recently deceased individual's perceptions just before and after death. In the nineteenth century, people seldom died alone. Family and friends usually surrounded the dying, not out of morbid curiosity but in the hope that the dying might bring back a message from beyond. "I heard a fly buzz when I died," the poem begins, though we do not yet know the importance of such an observation.
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