My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -In Corners - till a DayThe Owner passed - identified -And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -And now We hunt the Doe -And every time I speak for Him -The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial lightUpon the Valley glow -It is as a Vesuvian faceHad let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -I guard My Master's Head -'Tis better than the Eider-Duck'sDeep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -None stir the second time -On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer liveHe longer must - than I -For I have but the power to kill,Without--the power to die--

General

Most readers feel the power of this poem, which is based on rage. The speaker compares her life to an unused loaded gun and finds joy in fulfilling its purpose to kill. Even if you have never felt a rage so violently that you felt destructive or explosive, can you imagine what such a state must feel like? Does this poem convincingly portray such a rage?

The force of this poem strikes me every time I read it, and I am moved by it though its exact meaning eludes me. For the critic David Porter, its message lies "in its very indefiniteness. Significance rests not in what the poem says but in what it leaves out, what it cannot get into its words and therefore into consciousness." Dickinson may be attempting to express the Inexpressible, or perhaps she is struggling with what was inexpressible for her. In any event, I agree with Adrienne Rich's view of this poem:

...I think it is a poem about possession by the daemon, about the dangers and risks of such possession if you are a woman, about the knowledge that power in a woman can seem destructive, and that you cannot live without the daemon once it has possessed you. . . .

              I do not pretend to have--I don't even wish to have--explained this poem, accounted for its every image; it will reverberate with new tones long after my words about it have ceased to matter. But I think that for us, at this time, it is a central poem in understanding Emily Dickinson, and ourselves, and the condition of the woman artist, particularly in the nineteenth century. It seems likely that the nineteenth-century woman poet, especially, felt the medium of poetry as dangerous. . . Emily Dickinson's is the only poetry in English by a woman of that century which pierces so far beyond the ideology of the "feminine" and the conventions of womanly feeling. To write it at all, she had to be willing to enter chambers of the self in which

Ourself behind ourself, concealed--Should startle most-- and to relinquish control there, to take those risks she had to create a relationship to the outer world where she could feel in control.

I will briefly discuss the view that this poem grows out of her anger at the narrow life allowed to Dickinson by her society and by her father. She felt forced to practice her art privately, that is, she wrote her poetry privately and shared it with only a few family members and friends. To be able to dedicate herself to poetry, she withdrew into seclusion. It was a heavy price to pay to be a poet. This poem, with its slaughter and its "Vesuvian" voice, expresses her rage at the restrictions on the woman poet, her sense of the power of language, and the sense of control that writing poetry gave her.

Try reading this poem by feeling the larger impressions, don't worry about understanding or puzzling out every line and word.

Analysis of Poem

In the past, she "had" stood in the corner, without a purpose. Then a hunter found her, knew her purpose since he was her "Master," and used her to express her purpose. The gun can be seen as language; the hunter's shooting-- the expression of the gun--is creating poetry. The "doe" (female deer) is hunted and presumably killed, just as women writers have to kill or suppress a part of themselves to write. Hunting in the wood re-establishes a relationship with nature, a frequent topic in Dickinson's poetry. It also gives a sense of control (the Woods are "Sovereign"). The Hunter/Owner/Master may symbolize the poet-part of the speaker, poetic inspiration, or poetry itself--or something else altogether. The speaker prefers to stand guard over her Master rather than share a soft downy pillow; she rejects the softer life, the homelier alternative. The speaker's purpose, power, and control are destructive and bring the her joy and satisfaction, until, perhaps, the last stanza. The last stanza is difficult, tangled and perhaps indicates some confusion in Dickinson's thinking.

I felt a funeral in my brain,        And mourners, to and fro,Kept treading, treading, till it seemed        That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,        A service like a drumKept beating, beating, till I thought         My mind was going numb.

And then I heard them lift a box,        And creak across my soulWith those same boots of lead,        Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,        And Being but an ear,And I and silence some strange race,

        Wrecked, solitary, here.

And then a plank in reason, broke,        And I dropped down and down--And hit a world at every plunge,        And finished knowing--then--

"I felt a funeral in my brain" traces the speaker's descent into madness. It is a terrifying poem for both the speaker and the reader. The speaker experiences the loss of self in the chaos of the unconscious, and the reader experiences the speaker's descending madness and the horror most of us feel about going crazy.

Dickinson uses the metaphor of a funeral to represent the speaker's sense that a part of her is dying, that is, her reason is being overwhelmed by the irrationality of the unconscious. A funeral is an appropriate image for this ordeal. The most obvious connotation with a funeral is death. Also a funeral is a formal event, whose rules and procedures suggest control and order. The control and order implicit in a funeral contrast ironically with the lack of control and loss of rationality that threaten the speaker. In addition, a funeral marks the passage from one state to another (life to death, sanity to insanity). However, the poet is not observing the funeral but is feeling it. She is both observer of the funeral and participant, indicating that the Self is divided. By the end of the poem, the Self will have shattered into pieces or chaos.

The mourners are a metaphor to express her pain. Their treading (note the repetition of the word, which gives emphasis and suggests the action) indicates a pressure that is pushing her down. The speaker has a momentary impression that reason ("sense") is escaping or being lost. The pressure of the treading is reasserted with the repetition, "beating, beating." This time her mind, the source of reasoning, goes "numb," a further deterioration in her condition.

You can trace the process of the speaker's loss of rationality in stanzas three and four. The last two lines of stanza four assess her condition; she sees herself as "wrecked, solitary." Her descent into irrationality separates her from other human beings, making her a member of "some strange race." Her alienation and inability to communicate are indicated by her being enveloped by silence.

In the last stanza, the one I have added here, Dickinson uses the metaphor of standing on a plank or board over a precipice, to describe the speaker's descent into irrationality. In other words, her hold on rationality was insecure. She falls past "worlds," which may stand for her past; she is losing her

connections to reality. Her descent is described as "plunges," suggesting the speed and force of her fall into psychological chaos ("got through knowing"). The last word of the poem, "then--," does not finish or end her experience but leaves opens the door for the nightmare-horror of madness.

A narrow fellow in the grass Occasionally rides; You may have met him,---did you not,His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb A spotted shaft is seen; And then it closes at your feet And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,A floor too cool for corn.Yet when a child, and barefoot,I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash Unbraiding in the sun,--When, stooping to secure it, It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people I know, and they know me; I feel for them a transport Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow, Attended or alone, Without a tighter breathing, And zero at the bone.

This is another of Dickinson's poems presenting the point of view of a child, but the speaker is now an adult looking back. Can we determine whether the "child" is a boy or a girl? In one variant of the poem "child," in stanza 3, reads "boy." Could a girl also be barefoot outside?

Initially, the snake is characterized as (1) transient or passing swiftly and (2) deceptive or misleading . (1) His appearance is "sudden." The snake's passing briefly divides the grass in one place, then does the same thing somewhere else. The snake is hard to see. (2) The speaker has been deluded by the snake's appearance--mistaking the snake for the lash of a whip. In other words, the snake appears to be one thing but is actually something else. What associations does a whip or a lash have? Is this descriptive detail positive or negative? When you reread the poem, do you see it as preparing for the ending?

The snake is described in human terms: "fellow" (twice), "rides," and "comb"; the use of "floor" for the kind of ground he likes suggests a house, rather than outdoors. At this point in the poem, do these words suggest the speaker's separateness or estrangement from the snake and nature, or do they suggest connection?

The speaker knows and is known by "Several of nature's people" and feels "a transport / Of cordiality" for them. (Transport means carried away with emotion, rapture; cordiality means graciousness, sincerity, or deep feeling.) Do these words emphasize the speaker's separateness or estrangement from nature and her people, or do they suggest connection? Is the snake included among "nature's people"? If not, does the snake's exclusion hint at a distancing of the speaker from the snake, a separation, however small, between them?

The last stanza begins with "But." What kind of connection does "but" establish with the preceding stanzas? does it lead you to expect similarity, an example, a contrast, or something else?

The speaker feels "a tighter breathing" and "zero at the bone" every time he/she sees a snake. "Tighter breathing" suggests constriction, a holding of the breath; is this a pleasant or an unpleasant feeling? "Zero" suggests cold and also nothingness. That the feeling penetrates to "the bone" suggests how deeply felt, how intense the emotion is. When you put all these details together, does the

response sound like fear?

Is this a poem about the threat or danger that may suddenly reveal itself in nature? Could "zero" hint at death or the presence of death in nature?

Why does Dickinson use s sounds in the first stanza? Are s sounds appropriate to a snake, the subject of this poem?

What, if any, sexual undertones exist in this poem?

A bird came down the walk: He did not know I saw; He bit an angle-worm in halves And ate the fellow, raw.

And then he drank a dew From a convenient grass, And then hopped sidewise to the wall To let a beetle pass.

He glanced with rapid eyesThat hurried all abroad,--

They looked like frightened beads, I thought;He stirred his velvet head

Like one in danger; cautious,I offered him a crumb,And he unrolled his feathersAnd rowed him softer home

Than oars divide the ocean, Too silver for a seam, Or butterflies, off banks of noon, Leap, plashless, as they swim.

The speaker observes the bird and tries to establish contact with the bird by offering it food. The bird flies off. A few of the speaker's details describe the bird as a wild creature in nature, and more details present his behavior and his appearance in terms of human behavior.

Stanza one

Because the bird does not know the speaker is present, he behaves naturally, that is, his behavior is not affected by her presence. We see the bird's "wildness" or non-humanness in his biting the worm in half and eating it. "Raw" continues to emphasize his wildness. Ironically the word "raw" carries an implication of civilized values and practices ("raw" implicitly contrasts with cooking food). Why mention that the bird ate the worm raw? Would you expect the bird to cook the worm? Also, does the fact that the bird "came" down the walk sound civilized, socialized? does the description sound like someone walking on a sidewalk?

Stanza two

The birds' drinking dew (note the alliteration) suggests a certain refinement, and "from a grass" makes the action resemble the human action of drinking from a glass. And the bird politely allows a beetle to pass.

Stanza three

In lines one and two, the description of the bird's looking around is factual description and suggests the bird's caution and fear, as well as a possible threat in nature. With lines three and four, the speaker describes the bird in terms of civilization, with "beads" and "velvet."

Stanza four

The idea of danger in nature is made explicit but remains a minor note in

this stanza and in the poem. It occupies only half a line, "Like one in danger." "Cautious," the speaker offers the crumb. How is "cautious " meant? Does she feel the need to be cautious? or does she offer the crumb cautiously? (One of the characteristics of Dickinson's poetry is a tendency to drop endings as well as connecting words and phrases; you have to decide whether she has dropped the -ly ending from "cautious.")

Her action causes the bird to fly off. Her description of his flight details his beauty and the grace of his flight, a description which takes six lines. Does the idea of danger or of the bird's beauty receive more emphasis, or are the danger and the beauty emphasized equally? Does it matter in this poem whether one receives more emphasis than the other, that is, would the different emphases affect the meaning of the poem?

I am suggesting that this poem reveals both the danger and the beauty of nature. Does the poem support this reading? What might Dickinson's purpose be in having the narrator see the bird in "civilized" terms? Is it a way of pushing away or of controlling the threat and terrors that are always present and may suddenly appear in nature?

The heart asks pleasure first, And then, excuse from pain; And then, those little anodynes That deaden suffering,

And then, to go to sleep;

And then, if it should beThe will of its Inquisitor,The liberty to die.

The requests of the heart are arranged in a hierarchy or order of importance; the first request is for pleasure, but the remaining requests ask for relief from pain. The pain increases as the poem goes on; this is the reason that the remedies to relieve the pain become increasingly extreme, with the final request being for death.

That the heart "asks" indicates its lower or dependent status; another has the power to grant the request. Listing pleasure as the first request might suggest that it is the most important one. But does the rest of the poem support this assumption? The number of lines devoted to suffering overwhelm the one line devoted to pleasure. Similarly, the degree of suffering implied by the increasingly desperate requests for relief from pain minimizes the importance of pleasure. The last line of stanza one, with its request to "deaden" suffering, anticipates or foreshadows the final request for literal death. (An anodyne is anything that relieves or lessens pain.)

It is God who has the power to grant relief from pain. The implication is that He has the power to inflict it also. This implication is made explicit with her calling God "Inquisitor." Historically, the Inquisition was established by the Roman Catholic Church in the thirteenth century to search out and punish heretics. It came to be associated, particularly in Protestant countries, as a cruel, unjust institution which tortured innocent victims and even burned them at the stake. In using the term "Inquisitor," is Dickinson judging God guilty of inflicting pain upon humanity? Listing the requests for relief ("And then...And then...And then...And then") has a cumulative effect, emphasizing the pain and God's culpability. The use of the word "will" for God makes him totally responsible for humanity's continuing to suffer because He chooses to withhold death.

The final irony is the phrasing of the request to die--"the liberty to die." "Liberty" has powerful connotations for Americans, all favorable. It opens up vistas of freedom; however, in this poem liberty is the freedom to die to escape pain. By using "liberty," is Dickinson suggesting that this is a human right? God has the power to allow liberty or to deny it. That God may deny this liberty and that the heart must request liberty further portray God as an oppressor.

Is this poem in part at least an indictment of God for inflicting misery on humanity?

There is an alternate reading that you might prefer. The alternate reading may be combined with the indictment of God or may replace that reading. The poem can be seen as tracing our progress through life. The child wants pleasure. As we grow older, we experience pain, which increases with age.

At first we want not to feel pain; then we realize pain is inevitable and ask for relief from pain. The kind of relief we ask for becomes greater as the pain increases until finally the only escape from pain is death.

After great pain a formal feeling comes--The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go roundA wooden wayOf ground, or air, or ought,Regardless grown,A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of leadRemembered if outlived,As freezing persons recollect the snow--First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

Dickinson is an astute student of human psychology and responses; her range may be narrow, but it is profound. Dickinson brilliantly recreates the suffering we undergo after some terrible, excruciating event in our lives. The specific cause of the torment does not matter; whatever the cause, the response is the same, and, in this poem, the response is what matters.

She traces the numbness experienced after some terrible blow. Is numbness one way we protect ourselves against the onrush of pain and against being overwhelmed by suffering? She is discussing emotional pain, but don't we respond similarly to a physical blow with numbness before pain sets in? This psychological dynamic has another parallel, an electrical circuit breaker. Just as a dangerous surge of electricity will trip a circuit breaker and cut off the electricity, so a surge of anguish will trip our emotional "circuit breaker" temporarily, so that we don't feel the pain.

The experience is one that all of us will undoubtedly endure at some time or other and may be one you have already endured.

Stanza 1

She uses alliteration for emphasis: f sounds in line 1, s sounds in the rest of the stanza. H sounds tie together "Heart" and "He." Notice the alliteration in the next stanzas; sometimes it involves only two words.

This poem has no speaker, no "I." The sufferer is dehumanized, perhaps until the last two lines. The sufferer is an object in line 1; the formal feeling "comes" upon or acts on her or him; the sufferer is passive, submissive. Then the sufferer is described in terms of body parts--nerves, heart, feet. The gender of the sufferer is not indicated. Is depersonalization one technique for showing emotional deadness? In my discussion of this poem, I will refer to the sufferer as "she," because of the awkwardness of constantly repeating "sufferer" or "he or she."

Dickinson captures the numbness with "formal feeling," "ceremonious," "like tombs," and "Stiff Heart." The numbness is a lack of feeling; perhaps it would be more accurate to say a lack of connection with our feelings or a disconnection from emotions. Consider how much feeling or responsiveness is suggested by the word "formal," how much feeling is involved in ceremony, especially ceremony associated with "tombs" or death, and how much a "stiff" heart can feel.

The individual asks a question about Christ ("He"). Christ of course symbolizes agony and is the ultimate suffering human being. The question can be read in more than one way. (1) The blow was so horrific that the sufferer is confused about whether the crucifixion was hers or Christ's. (2) The agony, which the sufferer is cut off from but knows is there, is so acute that the sufferer wonders whether the agony of the crucifixion is hers or Christ's. Paradoxically, numbness or having no feelings is itself an agony. In numbness, time becomes distorted; we lose our sense of time. We perceive no end to this state of agonized numbness. So she is unsure whether her numbness began only yesterday or centuries ago.

Stanza 2

The feet (means of movement) represent going about daily routines ("ground, or air, or ought"). But we do this in a "mechanical" and a "wooden" way--further dehumanization and deadness. "Ought" may be read as meaning ""nothing," like zero; or it may stand for obligations, that is, all the things we ought to do. Which possibility do you prefer and why? Or, do you have yet another reading? "Regardless grown" means having lost regard or concern for things or living.

Finally, there is the irony of feeling an emotion which is "quartz contentment." Obviously, "quartz contentment" is an oxymoron. How much feeling does quartz have? To emphasize the quartz-ness of the "contentment," Dickinson adds that it is "like a stone." And how much feeling does this simile suggest?

Just looking at the poem reveals how this stanza differs from the first and third stanzas. They are both four lines; this stanza is five lines. Why might Dickinson have chosen to make this stanza longer? The way to think about this question is to consider the meaning of the stanza. Is making the stanza longer, which emphasizes it and also makes it "feel" a little longer and slower when we read it, appropriate to the meaning? If this extra line does not further in any way the idea expressed in this stanza, then the device may have been a mistake.

Stanza 3

The time of numbness has been shortened from the century of stanza one; its end is nearing. However, to the sufferer time hangs heavy ("lead") or drags slowly. So "hour of lead" is also an oxymoron.

With line 2, the full force and danger of experiencing the agony are introduced--"if outlived." The sufferer may not survive the pain. The poem closes with a simile or comparison of the sufferer to "freezing persons." "Freezing," as opposed to "frozen," indicates action that is currently happening, that is in process or not yet completed. The sufferer has moved on to the next stage and is undergoing the freezing or releasing of the agonized feelings. Does the fact that Dickinson uses the plural "persons," rather than the singular "a person," emphasize the universal application of the process she is tracing?

What is the "letting go" that freezing persons face? Does this merely mean letting go of the numbness to be flooded by pain? Or does the sufferer face a more terrible possibility? Will the pain overwhelm permanently, so that identity, the life itself, are overwhelmed by it and the individual is lost in it forever, as in the phrase "if outlived"? Do the words "remembered if outlived" indicate survival because of "remembered"? To remember is to have survived. However, the hour of lead is remembered only "if outlived"; does this phrasing suggests that survival is not guaranteed?

My life closed twice before its close;        It yet remains to seeIf Immortality unveil        A third event to me,So huge, so hopeless to conceive,

       As these that twice befell.Parting is all we know of heaven,       And all we need of hell.

The speaker uses the metaphor of death to describe the torment two cataclysmic events inflicted. What these two events are we don't know, and I think there is little to be gained in trying to read the poem biographically; for example, is she referring to the deaths of two people? and if so, to whom? was she in love? were her feelings reciprocated?

What matters is that the pain of these events was so sharp that she feels as if her life ended. Despite her feeling, she is, of course, still physically alive, so that she can experience more than one loss and the pain of that loss. Obviously, "its close" at the end of line 1 refers to her literal death.

Dickinson uses metaphors of vision ("see" and "unveil") for revelation. What happens after death, in immortality? She compares what might be revealed to the pain she suffered twice before.

The last two lines of this poem present a powerful paradox; parting is both heaven and hell. We part with those who die and--hopefully--go to heaven, which is, ironically, an eternal happiness for them; however, we who are left behind suffer the pain (hell) of their deaths (parting). Is there any comfort in this poem? What is the one thing we "know" about heaven? Is heaven, for living human beings, connected to hell? A personal note: these lines chill me every time I read them, and they stay with me afterward.

Because I could not stop for Death,He kindly stopped for me;The carriage held but just ourselvesAnd Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste, And I had put awayMy labor, and my leisure too,For his civility.

We passed the school, where children stroveAt recess, in the ring;

We passed the fields of gazing grain,We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;The dews grew quivering and chill,For only gossamer my gown,My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemedA swelling of the ground;The roof was scarcely visible,The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet eachFeels shorter than the dayI first surmised the horses' headsWere toward eternity.

 Death is personified as a gentleman caller or suitor. Thomas H. Johnson calls him "one of the great characters of literature." But exactly what kind of person is he?

Is Death a kind, polite suitor? The speaker refers to his "kindness" and "civility." He drives her slowly; is this an expression of tact and consideration for her? If he is the courteous suitor, then Immortality, who is also in the carriage (or hearse) would be their chaperon, a silent one.

Is Death actually a betrayer, and is his courtly manner an illusion to seduce her? Because of his kindness in stopping for her, she agrees to go with him ("put away / My labor and my leisure too"). Is Death really cruel? She is not properly dressed for their journey; she is wearing only a gossamer gown and tulle tippet (gossamer: very light, thin cloth; tulle: a thin, fine netting used for veils, scarfs, etc.; tippet: covering for the shoulders). Is Immortality really an accomplice to Death's deception?

The drive symbolizes her leaving life. She progresses from childhood, maturity (the "gazing grain" is ripe) and the setting (dying) sun to her grave. The children are presented as active in their leisure ("strove"). The images of children and grain suggest futurity, that is, they have a future; they also depict the progress of human life. Is there irony in the contrast between her passivity and inactivity in the coach and their energetic activity?

The word "passed" is repeated four times in stanzas three and four. They are "passing" by the children and grain, both still part of life. They are also "passing" out of time into eternity. The sun passes them as the sun does

everyone who is buried. With the sun setting, it becomes dark, in contrast to the light of the preceding stanzas. It also becomes damp and cold ("dew grew quivering and chill"), in contrast to the warmth of the preceding stanza. Also the activity of stanza three contrasts with the inactivity of the speaker in stanzas four and five. They pause at the grave. What is the effect of describing it as a house?

In the final stanza, the speaker has moved into death; the language becomes abstract; in the previous stanzas the imagery was concrete and specific. What is Dickinson saying about death or her knowledge of death with this change? The speaker only guesses ("surmised") that they are heading for eternity. Why does she have to guess? She has experienced life, but what does she specifically know about being dead? And why didn't death tell her? If eternity is their goal, can Immortality be a passenger? Or is this question too literal-minded?

Why does Dickinson change from past tense to present tense with the verb "feels" (line 2, stanza 6)? Does eternity have an end?

In this poem, exclusion occurs differently than it does in "The soul selects her own society" Here the speaker is excluded from activities and involvement in life; the dead are outside "the ring" of life. As you read Dickinson's poems, notice the ways in which exclusion occurs and think about whether it is accurate to characterize her as the poet of exclusion.

I heard a fly buzz when I died;      The stillness round my formWas like the stillness in the air      Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,      And breaths were gathering sureFor that last onset, when the king      Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away      What portion of me ICould make assignable,-and then      There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,      Between the light and me;And then the windows failed, and then      I could not see to see.

The death in this poem is painless, yet the vision of death it presents is horrifying, even gruesome. The appearance of an ordinary, insignificant fly at the climax of a life at first merely startles and disconcerts us. But by the end of the poem, the fly has acquired dreadful meaning. Clearly, the central image is the fly. It makes a literal appearance in three of the four stanzas and is what the speaker experiences in dying.

The room is silent except for the fly. The poem describes a lull between "heaves," suggesting that upheaval preceded this moment and that more upheaval will follow. It is a moment of expectation, of waiting. There is "stillness in the air," and the watchers of her dying are silent. And still the only sound is the fly's buzzing. The speaker's tone is calm, even flat; her narrative is concise and factual.

The people witnessing the death have exhausted their grief (their eyes are "wrung dry" of tears). Her breathing indicates that "that last onset" or death is about to happen. "Last onset" is an oxymoron; "onset" means a beginning, and "last" means an end. For Christians, death is the beginning of eternal life. Death brings revelation, when God or the nature of eternity becomes known. This is why "the king / Be witnessed in his power." The king may be God, Christ, or death; think about which reading you prefer and why.

She is ready to die; she has cut her attachments to this world (given away "my keepsakes") and anticipates death and its revelation. Are the witnesses also waiting for a revelation through her death? Ironically the fly, not the hoped-for king of might and glory, appears. The crux of this poem lies in the way you interpret this discrepancy. Since the king is expected and the fly appears, are they to be associated? If the fly indicates the meaning of death, what is that meaning?

Does the fly suggest any realities of death--smell, decay? Flies do, after all, feed on carrion (dead flesh). Does this association suggest anything about the dying woman's vision of death? or the observers' vision? Is she-- are they--seeing the future as physical decay only? Does the fly's fulfilling their expectations indicate that death has no spiritual significance, that there is no eternity or immortality for us? There are other interpretations of the fly. The fly may stand for Beelzebub, who is also known as lord of the flies. Sometimes Beelzebub is used as another name for Satan; sometimes it refers to any devil; in Milton's Paradise Lost, Beelzebub is Satan's chief lieutenant in hell. If the King whom the observers and/or the speaker is waiting for turns out to be

the devil, is there still irony? How is the meaning of the poem affected by this reading? For example, does the poem become more cheerful? What would Dickinson be saying about eternity? Can the poem support more than one of these interpretations of the fly?

What is the effect of the fly being the only sign of life ("buzz") at the end of the poem? To extend this question, is it significant that the only sign of vitality and aliveness in the entire poem is the fly?

For literal-minded readers, a dead narrator speaking about her death presents a problem, perhaps an insurmountable problem. How can a dead woman be speaking? Less literal readers may face appalling possibilities. If the dead woman can still speak, does this mean that dying is perpetual and continuous? Or is immortality a state of consciousness in an eternal present?

"I heard a fly buzz when I died" is one of Emily Dickinson's finest opening lines. It effectively juxtaposes the trivial and the momentous; the movement from one to the other is so swift and so understated and the meaning so significant that the effect is like a blow to an emotional solar plexus (solar plexus: pit of the stomach). Some readers find it misleading because the first clause ("I heard a fly buzz") does not prepare for the second clause ("when I died"). Is the dying woman or are the witnesses misled about death? does the line parallel their experience and so the meaning of the poem?