Transcript The Aeneid

I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I
Died
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 –
I Heard A Fly Buzz – When I Died
• The room is silent except for the fly. The
poem describes a lull between "heaves,"
suggesting that upheaval preceded this
moment and that more upheaval will follow.
• It is a moment of expectation, of waiting.
There is "stillness in the air" and the watchers
of her dying are silent. And still the only
sound is the fly's buzzing.
I Heard A Fly Buzz – When I Died
• The people witnessing the death have exhausted
their grief (their eyes are "wrung dry" of tears).
• Her breathing indicates that "that last onset" or
death is about to happen. "Last onset" is a paradox,
it seems like a contradiction because "onset" means
a beginning, and "last" means an end.
I Heard A Fly Buzz – When I Died
• For Christians, death is the beginning of eternal
life. Death brings revelation, when God
becomes known.
• This is why "the King / Be Witnessed in – the
Room – " The king may be God or death.
• She is ready to die; she has cut her attachments
to this world and given away "my keepsakes”.
I Heard A Fly Buzz – When I Died
• Yet there is one “portion” of the speaker that is not
“assignable”, that she can’t give to whoever she wants.
This is her immortal soul, the ultimate destiny of which
she has not control over.
• As the speaker finally passed away the room seemed to
fill with darkness: “I could not see to see”. To her, the
windows appear to have failed because they don’t
seem to be letting any light in.
• The speaker says that as she died the fly “interposed” or
positioned itself between her and the light, making it the
last thing she saw.
What is the fly?
The image of a fly positioning itself the speaker and the light as
she lies dying is a puzzling one. There are several possible
interpretations:
• As the speaker dies her sense of sight begins to fail and her
field of vision is reduced to a small tunnel. A fly floats into her
remaining vision and it is the last thing she sees or hears as
dies.
What is the fly?
• The speaker is hallucinating. As the speaker lay on
her deathbed a fly was buzzing around the corner
of the room. As she finally passed away, the
speaker’s confused mind mixed up these two
events and she imagines a huge fly is blocking out
the light.
• The fly might indicate that there is nothing after
death, no afterlife. A fly suggests the grim realities
of death such as the smell, decay etc. Flies do, after
all, feed on dead flesh. The speaker could be
seeing the future, beyond death, as nothing more
that physical decay. The fly then might suggest that
there is no eternal life or immortality.
THEME: DEATH
• The poem movingly depicts the process of dying.
The poem’s final stanza portrays a mind
disintegrating as life leaves it.
• There is something powerful about the repetition of
the words “And then” in this stanza as the speaker
lists the stages of her mental collapse.
• The poem emphasises the indignity of the speaker’s
death. The speaker has prepared for death, has
made her will and gathered her family around her
to say goodbye. The last thing she hears, however,
is not the soothing words of her family but the
buzzing of a fly.
THEME: DEATH
• The last thing she sees is not the faces of her loved
ones but a fly floating in front of her.
• The speaker’s last experience in this world is of a
miserable and insignificant insect, “stumbling” as it
buzzes around the room.
• Many feel that this makes a mockery out of the
moment of her death, robbing her of grace and
dignity.
THE FLY AS PERSONIFICATION OF
DEATH
• The fly can be seen as a symbol or personification
of death. Flies are often associated with disease,
death and decay.
• Just as death is often personified as a blackcloaked figure, here Dickinson personifies death as
a fly blocking out the light of this world.
• The idea of death as a fly waiting to claim each of
us at the end of our lives is unpleasant and
disturbing.
THEME: RELIGION
• This poem presents a rather mocking view of
religion.
• The speaker and her loved ones wait anxiously
for “the King” to be “witnessed” in the room.
• They seem to believe that as the speaker dies,
Jesus – the king of heaven – will appear, and
carry his loyal subject’s soul to paradise.
•
THEME: RELIGION
• Yet at the moment of the speaker’s death, there is
no sign of Jesus. There is no indication that the
speaker is bound for paradise.
• The last thing the speaker “witnesses” is not the
glorious arrival of the “King” but the uncertain
buzzing of a stumbling fly.
• The poem offers little hope of life after death. The
poem ends with the dying speaker’s vision fading to
black. Dickinson is possibly suggesting that this black
oblivion is all that awaits us when we pass away.
LANGUAGE
• The phrase “Heaves of Storm” is an example of
onomatopoeia. The phrase mirrors the sound of
blowing wind.
• Repetition is used effectively in stanza 4. The
speaker mechanically lists the stages of her
collapse, “and then … And then … and then”,
presenting them as part of an unstoppable
process.
• Dickinson uses an excellent simile to describe
the momentary quietness in the room when
the speaker is granted a brief respite from her
suffering. The quietness, she says, is like that at
the “eye of a hurricane”. The simile captures
the tense atmosphere of dread and
expectancy around the deathbed.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the atmosphere like in the room? How is
this atmosphere created?
2. What is the last thing the speaker sees and hears
before she dies? Describe what you think she
experiences.
3. ‘This is a really frightening portrayal of death’.
Read the poem closely and carefully once again.
Write two paragraphs saying whether you agree
or disagree with this statement.