The Intentional Focus on the Fly The fly is an interesting character in poem number 591 in “The Poems of Emily Dickin-son”. Essentially, the poem is an account of an unnamed dying human protagonist of an un-known gender. The fly is with the protagonist as this event happens (unexpectedly as it will later be discussed) and the line “With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz” (13) suggests that the fly was with him or her reluctantly. In this paper, it will be argued that the fly appears to be a reluc-tant mediator between life and death, according to the line “Between the light - and me-” (14). It will also be argued that the fly is even mentioned or noticed because the narrator accounting his or her own death was too fixated on that one thing …show more content…
Or perhaps the fly would have rather been in a vibrant setting that greatly contrasted the still room where these two characters were in. The fly could have even been hungry and might have been somewhat trapped in the still room. Regardless of why the fly was in the room, I think it is apparent from lines 7 and 8, “For that last Onset - when the King/ Be witnessed - in the Room”, that the fly was not the being that was expected to come to the narrator. The narrator was likely expecting to see Jesus Christ, who he or she considered to be his or her savior. The fly represents the irony of the narrator’s death, and what Dickinson may have been trying to explain through this poem is that when one dies, one cannot know in what condition this event will take place for him or her. On the surface, the fly may represent the mundane aspect of death. Not only do many people die in a still setting, but also, things in the environment move around, without a care for what other events are occurring. One exception to this of course is when objects are about to come in contact with each other. In that case, one or both of those things, assuming one or both of them are living, will move away from the thing he or she is about to collide
The narrator is the first symbolism because it is a women’s point of view on a one night stand that started with lust and ended with love. She is young and in love with a random man that she barely know much about. The Dragon flies at the beginning of the poem symbols what she and the man having sex. They are stuck together and sweating like it is “100 degrees at noon” in the sun. (3) She uses the dragonflies because they are beautiful creatures that are not sure about the other dragonfly that they are making a baby with. Next, she explains herself as a drunk that “refuse(s) to remember, the way a drunkard forgets.” (19, 20) She does not want to remember the next morning what she has done and feels weird that she has done what she has done with the
Thesis: Glaspell utilized the image of a bird to juxtapose/compare/contrast the death of Mrs. Wright’s canary to the death of Mrs. Wright’s soul.
In this poem about seeing from the shadows, the speaker?s revelations are invariably ironic. What could be a more unpromising object of poetic eloquence than mayflies, those leggy, flimsy, short-lived bugs that one often finds floating in the hulls of rowboats? Yet for Wilbur...
In the sixth dream, his repeated failures to mail a dried fruit is synonymous to an inability to relieve himself of the weight of other’s deaths. The dried fruit is a corpse, as his own corpse previously laid, “On the dried leaves” (18). This leads him to self-destructively fly a kite into a storm in the last dream. The speaker finds this experience fulfilling, as he notes, “my soul was contented / Watching it flash against the concave of the sky” (65-66).
Comparing and Contrasting Dickinson’s Poems, Because I Could Not Stop for Death and I Heard a Fly Buzz - When I Died
One thing that stands out about this poem is that the word fly is capitalized throughout. It makes one wonder what the fly actually represents. Flies often gather around death and dead things, and on one level, the fly can be seen as a representation of death. Death, the perpetual fly on the wall, is finally making itself noticed. Although the speaker has always known that death is going to come, when it finally arrives, its modest appearance is disappointing.
In “The Writer” by Richard Wilbur, one is able to realize what the real battle in life is: watching the one that you love suffer, and having to stand idly by. Jane Nelson once provided the following statement, “The worst thing one can ever experience is watching someone drown and not being able to convince them that they can save themselves by just standing up.” In “The Writer”, we see this conclusion being made as the author compares his daughter to the trapped bird. Wilbur explains the story of a time that a bird had become trapped inside the room, but due to fear the bird possessed, Mr. Wilbur was unable to assist the bird in its escape, but rather forced to watch the suffering from a distance while hoping God has mercy. Mr. Wilbur describes the birds state as, “We watched the sleek, wild, dark and iridescent creature batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove to the hard floor, or the desktop, and wait t...
He is almost sleeping while doing this. This creates a very powerful visual image. It epitomizes how the people left to grieve act. Many people stricken by death want to be left alone and bottle themselves up. The first few lines of the poem illustrate how deeply in sorrow the man is. This image should affect everyone. It should make the reader sympathize or even empathize with the man. Another main way he uses imagery is through the black bird or the raven. The presence of the bird is a bad omen. It is supposed to be followed by maleficent things. The bird is used to symbolize death figuratively and literally. The bird only says one word the entire poem. It repeats “nevermore.” This word can be interpreted multiple ways each time it is said. It is also possible that the bird is not talking. It is possible that the bird is an image created by
... they contrast on their perception of death. This allows one to conclude that Dickinson views death and afterlife as indecisive and unclear. Dickinson uses different strategies to highlight the changeable character of death. In “I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died” death signifies sorrow, but in “Because I Could Not Stop For Death,” death is kind to the narrator. Dickinson indicates that death is unpredictable. Nesmith also writes that “while everything heretofore is like a well-rehearsed play—controlled, orchestrated, and scripted, proceeding according to ritual—the ill-timed fly ruins the finale. Yet death occurs anyways” (165). Death can mean different things such as, the end of life or the beginning eternity. Death does not follow an agenda and is far past human understanding. Death has many points of view and is always unable to be scheduled around a human’s plan.
Similar to Shakespeare, Dickinson choses to put into use the iambic pentameter. The use of the meter enhances the poem, enabling the reader to go through the text with an easy rhythm in which one can digest the passage. “I Heard a Fly Buzz- When I Died” is a very complex poem, that may be difficult to analyze, but by breaking the poem apart piece by piece, using the iambic pentameter, analyzation becomes much easier. “I heard /a Fly /buzz - when /I died -/” (1) the pentameter stresses heard, fly, when, and died. Using those clues it is noted that the speaker is perhaps no longer living, based on the fact that he or she said “when” and “died”, which is past tense.the next three lines “The Still/ness in/ the Room/, Was like/ the Still/ness in/ the Air -/, Between /the Heaves/ of
The tone in the first stanza is of joyousness and excitement, as people make their way to heaven. Dickinson uses the words “gayer,” “hallelujah,” and “singing” to emphasize the uplifting feeling here. It could be argued that this is the point in the humans’ lives (or deaths, or afterlives, depending on how one looks at it) when they reach the pinnacle of happiness, for they have finally entered heaven. The humans, now dead, would then acquire wings, immortality, and an angelic status that rises far above that of humans. Much like Dickinson’s other poems, this one uses metaphors to represent similar things, such as “home,” which represents “heaven,” “snow,” which represents the “clouds” on which heaven resides, and “vassals,” which represents the “angels” who serve God.
Because it has become so familiar, death is no longer a frightening presence, but a comforting companion. Despite this, Dickinson is still not above fear, showing that nothing is static and even the most resolute person is truly sure of anything. This point is further proven in “I Heard a Fly Buzz”, where a fly disrupts the last moment of Dickinson’s life. The fly is a symbol of death, and of uncertainty, because though it represents something certain—her impending death—it flies around unsure with a “stumbling buzz”. This again illustrates the changing nature of life, and even death.
Edgar Allan Poe tells the story of a bereaved man who is grieving for his lost love in the poem, “The Raven.” During a dark and gloomy night, the man hears a knock at his door. Hoping that it is Lenore, his dead lover, coming back to him, he goes to open the door. Unfortunately, he is only met with emptiness and disappointment. Shortly after, a raven flies into the room through the window and lands on the bust of Pallas. The man begins to converse with this dark and mysterious bird. In response to everything the man says, the raven repeats one dreadful word: “Nevermore.” The symbolism of the raven being connected to death, and the man’s interaction with the dark bird reveals to readers that he is going through the stages of dying. Subsequently, the repetition of the bird’s one worded reply makes it known that the man will never see Lenore again because there is no afterlife.
When he first sees the fly, the boss notice that it is struggling to escape the ink. The fly had "struggling legs" and "fell back... and began to swim." Once the boss saves the fly for the first time, he proceeds to cover it in ink again to watch the struggle. The struggle he is watching take place can be easily compared to the struggle he is going through. The boss, like the fly, is fighting off the adversity he is faced with, for him it is the sorrow of his son's death. Then, when he has finally gotten through the struggle, the pain and adversity, like the ink, falls back upon him. Along with this, the death of the fly can be seen as symbolic of the boss's acceptance of the death and the "death" of the sorrow that goes with it. The boss is said to have "fell to wondering what it was he had been thinking about before" and that "for the life of him he could not remember." The fly and what it has experienced in this short time can be seen as a symbol of the boss and his
I was overcome by a sudden gust of shock. This insignificant critter loved and admired himself, despite the numerous graces that surrounded him. He felt no need to compare nor dismiss himself simply because he could never hope to measure up to the beauties that constantly reminded others how horrifyingly ugly he was. The happiness of the fly was apparent. To such a sophisticated being, such as humans, he was only a menial nothing, but in his eyes he was the only deity.