Fly Buzz

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I heard a fly buzz—when I died In this poem, the speaker’s tone is calm, even flat. There is a calmness to the speaker’s tone that causes the reader to realize death is a natural part of life. The speaker is as a ghost or spirit. She is watching the events that take place as death. She does not seem annoyed by the fly. She is calm in describing the events that take place at death. The passage of death has an unsettling, disconnected tone but is not scary or painful. Death is painless. The stillness in the room creates a most peaceful passing. Death is as natural as the buzzing fly. The first image we get in this poem is of that fly, but we don’t see it yet. We just hear it buzz. Emily Dickenson describes his buzz as “Blue- uncertain-stumbling.” This gives us an even stronger image of the colors and the movements that go along with that annoying little sound. Dickenson doesn’t have to say, “there was a little blue fly that kept landing everywhere.” She just says a few words into these lines, and we begin to build a picture of this fly in our minds. Dickenson uses a simile to compare the air in the room with the feeling of the air during a lull in a storm. Here at this point in the poem, it is all spooky quiet, when everything stands still for a …show more content…

Comparing them to a bog is certainly sarcastic in tone. Emily Dickinson’s tone may be playful, but it is also potent in its underlying satire of the sacrifice of individuality that both the celebrity and the admire suffer. There is simile, “How dreary to be- somebody! How public- like a Frog- To tell one’s name- the livelong June- To an admiring Bog!.” Personification, “ an admiring Bog”, “like a Frog- to tell one’s name… to an admiring Bog!.” The poet uses figurative language, such as similes and personification to appeal to the reader’s

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