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Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

            The two poems by Emily Dickinson, "I Heard a Fly Buzz – When I Died" and "Because I Could Not Stop for Death," revolve around the theme of dying. Though the two do centralize themselves around death they both have slightly different messages or beliefs about what is to come after passing on. By discussing each of the poems and contemplating their meanings, the reader should have a better understanding of the message Dickinson is trying to send to her audience and a much greater aspect of what could be waiting for us after we die. When Dickinson writes in her first line, "I heard a fly buzz - when I died" (888); it grasps the reader's attention by describing the moment of her death. After reading the first stanza the reader can almost hear or sense the feeling of the fly buzzing in such a still and quiet room. The contrasting sounds of the noisy fly and the stillness of the air draw the reader deeper into the poem. The image created by this contrast is like the color white on the color black. It stands out immensely and catches the reader's eye. After the first stanza the reader is in full knowledge of the death of the poet. The second stanza reads, "The eyes around had wrung them dry, and breaths were gathering firm for that last onset, when the king be witnessed in the room" (888). .
             This stanza deals with how God is brought upon by the speaker's death. Onlookers surround the dead body and seem to be looking for clues to what may await them when it is their turn to perhaps pass onto another world. In stanza three the speaker is preparing for her journey to pass into the great beyond. Dickinson writes, "I willed my keepsakes, signed away what portion of me be assignable and then it was, there interposed a fly" (888). After already dying the speaker feels that it is no longer a must to have the possessions that most living people deem necessary and leaves them behind as her soul comes closer to its fate.


Essays Related to Death in the Poetry of Emily Dickinson

1. Emily dickenson

... to the potency of her poetry. As a result of Emily Dickinson's loneliness, she was able to focus on her poetry better than other authors that time modern authors who had no effect on her writing. Emily was original and inventive in her poetry, usually drawing on the Bible and Shakespeare for references. Eventually when her poetry was published, editors took it upon themselves to group them into classes, Friends, Nature, Love, and Death ... . These editors arranged her works with titles, rearranged the sentence structure, and corrected Dickinson's grammar. In 1955, Thomas Johnson publishe...

  • Word Count: 325
  • Approx Pages: 1

2. Emily Dickinson

... point of view, are immortality or the idea of physical process of death or decay (Discovering authors). In one of her poems, she writes "I felt a funeral in my brain". This is identified as the fear of loss of Emily Dickinson's life (American 1221). In her poems she talks about extreme ecstasy or extreme despair (Bloom, critical 33). Dickinson's poems have a tug of war between life and death and happy and sad (Bloom, critical 116). Her best poetry is ... not concerned with cause, but with qualities of ... ...

  • Word Count: 644
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3. Emily Dickinson

TITLE EMILY DICKINSON: COMPARISON OF TWO POEMS, NATURE, BIOGRAPHY AND INFLUENCES Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) wrote over 2,000 poems during her life in Amherst, Massachusetts, but only seven were published while she was still alive. After her death, her poems were classified and published. Dickinson was influenced by the religion of her father, the impact of the Civil War, and nature. A look at two poems from her Nature class shows how Dickinson combines all of these ... , her nephew Gilbert, Charles Wadsworth, and her mother all died within that time, and her obsession with death was reflected...

  • Word Count: 1557
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4. emily dickinson

... Seminary but sever homesickness led her to return home. In the 1850s she began writing poetry voluminously, organizing her work into small booklets. It is assumed that Emily separated herself from the world and turned into writing poetry because of a love dilemma. "During a trip to Philadelphia in the early 1850s, Emily fell in love with a married minister, the Reverent Charles Wadsworth. Her disappointment in love may have brought about her subsequent withdrawal from ... on May fifth of that year. Dying at 56, she never realized that one day she would be honored as one of America's gre...

  • Word Count: 438
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5. Emily Dickenson

... frustrated about religion as she felt. Lucky Gupta phrases it this way, "One of the most recurring themes in Emily Dickinson's poetry is the religious theme treated by her in an unusual way. Religion appealed to her as one of the deepest and most serious aspect of human life. Indeed it might be argued that the larger part of her poetry was distinctly religious. The religious terms such as God, eternity, immortality, heaven, infinity and ... , "Dickinson's major poetic method in dealing with religious subjects reflects the tension in her mind between belief and disbelief. There is a stran...

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6. Emily Dickinson' s Reluctance

... center of interests, the paper takes up the new view as the thesis that Dickinson who was in fact well aware of her worth, deliberately chose to withhold her poems from the world until they could be valued as unique artistic creations, even if this meant postponing fame until after her death Key word: KEY WORDS: Reluctance, Sorrow, Publish, Poetry . At her death in 1886,Emily Dickinson left ... behind over 1700 poems, of which only 7 were published anonymously while she was alive .certainly then, the woman York Winters called: one of the greatest lyric poets of all time"was all but unkno...

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7. Emily Dickinson And Trancendentalism

... of genuine, emotional insight into life, death, and love she was able to show through her poetry. This insight is that of a latter-day Puritan, completely divorced from the outward stir of life, retiring, by preference, deeper and deeper within. Her singular style of prose and her ability to discover the vastness of the mind while remaining sequestered throughout most of her adult life define her as a master of American Poetry. Emily Dickinson was raised in ... a traditional New England home in the mid ... ...

  • Word Count: 1097
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8. The life of Emily Dickinson

... topic I chose was too broad. There is no way I would be able to compare the lives of Toni Morrison and Emily Dickinson. So now I will try and compare thier works and show how each of them break standards in thier work. Emily Elizabeth Dickinson was born onDecember 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusettes. She is the second daughter of Edward andEmily Norcross Dickinson. Emily, her older brother Austin, andher younger sister Lavinia were raised ... poems to. It was after that correspondence in 1862 that Dickinson decided against publishing her poems. Because of her decision not to publish her...

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9. Poets and Poetry

... analysis investigate, separately, a passage from Whitman's "Song of Myself" and Emily Dickinson's poem 334 -see Appendix- focusing on thematic contents and on the formal aspects which lead to their interpretation. The conclusive paragraph draws on the common motifs to Whitman and Dickinson in the poems analyzed. Emily Dickinson 1. The letters of Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson distinguished herself not only for her poetry but also as writer of letters sent to friends, relatives. There is a close connection between ... interpreted the poem in this way : "Had a letter from Emily Dickinson...

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10. The Poetic Voice of Emily Dickinson

... Thomas Higginson, she could have been "somebody" instead of "nobody". After her death, her poems were published, and Dickinson became a famous poet. Because Emily Dickinson lived most of her life inside, her poetry reflects her inner struggles. "Hope is the Thing With Feathers" is a poem where Dickinson is creating a metaphor of hope through a bird. The hope is much like a bird that continues to fly within ... her. Hope offers encouragement through the dark times that we may go through in our lives. For the ... ...

  • Word Count: 591
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: High School

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