Journal #28 - I Heard a Fly Buzz (Dickinson)

"I Heard a Fly Buzz" by Emily Dickinson is a poem that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. The beginning of the poem opens up with a woman laying on her death bed getting ready to die, when suddenly a buzzing fly flies in and "interposed" her dying process. I found the poem to be very interesting and represented so many things. The "heaves of storms" represents the calm before the storm, or in her case, the calm before the speaker dies. Her mourners are around her also anticipating the death of the speaker, but suddenly this annoying little fly buzzes its way on in and completely interrupts her dying ritual. I think when someone is dying, the solemn and calming atmosphere is a universal thing. When people, or in this case, an insect, messes up this process, it completely changes everything. As we discussed in case, when someone dies, the last sense they lose is their hearing, so before that, they have to sit there blind and basically emotionless. If this were the case for the speaker, she would not be able to see the people around her, but only hear this annoying little fly buzzing in her ear. I think this fly represents the little things in life that unless we closely listen to, we fail to see and hear. The spirituality demonstrated in the poem is also significant because it shows how serene the speaker was in dealing with the oncoming death sentence she was facing. The "king" mentioned in the poem represents God. He was awaiting her arrival, but like everything else, was interrupted by the annoying fly. I think that this poem is one of the more interesting poems we have read thus far because it is very easy to come up with one's own interpretation instead of going off of what is right, seeing that there is no right answer for how the poem plays itself out. One of the biggest lessons we can learn from this poem: flies are stupid and not important to society.

Dickinson, Emily. "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died." Emily Dickinson. Web. 28 Mar. 2012.