"I have a group of GCSE English students who absolutely rave over your site and constantly tell me how useful they have found it to be. Trust me it has inspired them."
The death in Emily Dickinson's poem "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died" is painless but striking.
- Words:
- 1708
- Submitted:
- Mon Dec 22 2003

... The death in Emily Dickinson's poem "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died" is painless but striking. The appearance of the fly is startling at first because it is unexpected. The setting of the poem is the speaker's death bed, what is an ordinary fly doing there? Obviously the speaker is waiting to die, she (if I may give the speaker a gender) has "willed my Keepsakes-Signed away What portion of me be Assignable-". [lines 9-11] She appears to have accepted her death but is waiting for something amazing to happen. The room is quiet but with a sense of anticipation "The Stillness in the Room Was like the Stillness in the Air-Between the Heaves of Storm-". There is a peaceful atmosphere yet death is the storm to come. The reader senses that the speaker and mourners are expecting some spectacular event at the moment of her death. "The Eyes














