Fly Flashcards
What sentence
Dickinson critiques the validity of the Puritan death bed vigils through a perplexingly dead speaker’s recount of their ‘perfect’ death in which a banal fly interposes
‘I heard a fly buzz – when I died’ EV
The characteristically abrupt opening - ‘I heard a fly buzz – when I died-’, and the trochaically stressed onomatopoeic ‘buzz’ allows Dickinson to draw attention to the abject fly
‘I heard a fly buzz – when I died’ AN
Associated with death and decay, she juxtaposes the expected solemnity of the perfect death bed ritual, foreshadowing the fly’s intrusion.
‘stillness in the room’ between the ‘heaves of the storm’
Moving their attention away from the fly, the dying speaker then turns to focus on the ‘stillness in the room’ between the ‘heaves of the storm’, utilizing the assonance of the long vowel sounds to create a peaceful moment of quietude during the speaker’s death vigil, ultimately resulting in that perfect transitionary period between the ‘storms’ of life and death, upholding Puritan’s faith in their traditions
‘eyes around’ that have been ‘wrung dry’
. The speaker then notes of the ‘eyes around’ that have been ‘wrung dry-’ as they anticipate the ‘King[s]’ appearance, adopting a synecdoche, similar to funeral, to convey the perceived spectatorship of the mourners, awaiting his arrival
‘breaths gather firm’
As ‘breaths gather firm’, Dickinson creates a sense of both anticipation and hopeful assurance within the speaker, reinforced by the ‘last onset’; an oxymoron conveying the speaker’s faith in the afterlife
Contour 1 end
Thus, Dickinson reflects on the traditional practices of puritan death vigils as a means of providing comfort surrounding deaths ubiquity.
‘there interposed a Fly-’ EV
However, as the speaker finalises all their mortal affairs, ‘there interposed a Fly-’.
there interposed a Fly-’ AN
Through this cacophonous verb, Dickinson returns to the bathetic fly disrupting the perfect ritual
‘blue-uncertain-stumbling buzz’
Regardless, the speaker’s senses start to fail as the fly becomes a ‘blue-uncertain-stumbling buzz’, this synaesthesia reflecting the speaker’s ultimate demise into the long-awaited oblivion, as erratic medial caesura and dashes implicate the fly’s irritating movement
‘[they] could not see to see’
As such, at their death, ‘[they] could not see to see’, reflecting the speaker’s continued confusion and absence of knowledge around death despite passing, ultimately denying the sense of assurance both speaker and mourners are craving.
Why
Thus, Dickinson presents death as ultimately mysterious and vastly unknowable, reflecting her ambivalence towards death throughout her opus.
