What happens when I die? It’s question that we’ve all surely asked ourselves, always present in the back of one’s mind. It resembles a seemingly never-ending search for purpose in life to surmount to the inevitable. As Russell M. Nelson once said, “We were born to die and we die to live”.
Emily Dickinson, a 19th century American writer from Amherst, Massachusetts, explored the intrinsic meanings of life and death through several of her poems and literature. Dickinson resided in a pious household; consequently, she continually questioned her roots and early religious teachings. In this poem, “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” Dickinson exposes her view of death by using humor and irony to demonstrate that death is never the way that we expect …show more content…
Several people were present with the dying body awaiting death, and most importantly awaiting ‘the King’. Because of her religious 19th century background, the King most likely signifies god. Incidentally, the lack of appearance of any King or occurrence of any divine event establishes the irony in this particular situation.
Instead of a grand shift of atmosphere, instead of the manifestation of god, what happens in the room is an event, comical and ironic in its nature. A fly appears. Dickinson’s employs synesthesia to recount an underwhelming outcome of what is meant to be a moment of grandiose departure. Brooks J Brouson defines synesthesia as “use of one sense to describe the workings of another” (621). Both “uncertain” and “stumbling” are adjectives applied to define the fly’s underlying buzz. Granted, this creature doesn’t represent one of immaculate beauty, alternatively one representing death and humor simultaneously. In the following line, “Between the light- and me” Dickinson paints the picture of the fly interposing between her and the light serving as a metaphor to demonstrate the absence of ‘the King’. And suddenly- the narrator cannot see, she has died and slipped into the realm of
Emily Dickinson, a 19th century American writer from Amherst, Massachusetts, explored the intrinsic meanings of life and death through several of her poems and literature. Dickinson resided in a pious household; consequently, she continually questioned her roots and early religious teachings. In this poem, “I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died” Dickinson exposes her view of death by using humor and irony to demonstrate that death is never the way that we expect …show more content…
Several people were present with the dying body awaiting death, and most importantly awaiting ‘the King’. Because of her religious 19th century background, the King most likely signifies god. Incidentally, the lack of appearance of any King or occurrence of any divine event establishes the irony in this particular situation.
Instead of a grand shift of atmosphere, instead of the manifestation of god, what happens in the room is an event, comical and ironic in its nature. A fly appears. Dickinson’s employs synesthesia to recount an underwhelming outcome of what is meant to be a moment of grandiose departure. Brooks J Brouson defines synesthesia as “use of one sense to describe the workings of another” (621). Both “uncertain” and “stumbling” are adjectives applied to define the fly’s underlying buzz. Granted, this creature doesn’t represent one of immaculate beauty, alternatively one representing death and humor simultaneously. In the following line, “Between the light- and me” Dickinson paints the picture of the fly interposing between her and the light serving as a metaphor to demonstrate the absence of ‘the King’. And suddenly- the narrator cannot see, she has died and slipped into the realm of