I Heard A Fly, By Michael Ryan - 1809 Words

When Emily Dickinson was still in her teenage years, she began to experience pain all around her. Life and death became a prevalent topic as Ryan introduces, â€Å"Her bedroom from the age of sixteen to twenty-four overlooked the village graveyard; repeatedly, in the close community of Amherst, she was privy to the loss of children, parents, spouses, inmates†. By the time she was older, her poetry was very eloquent and thought out. In her poem â€Å"I heard a Fly Buzz- when I died-†, also referred to as 465, she demonstrated her abilities to think and express feelings well beyond her years (15). Through the course of the poem one reading without analysis will understand that a fly buzzed in the room while the narrator encountered death. However,†¦show more content†¦In â€Å"465† Dickinson demonstrates her particular focus on a moment, the moment of the narrator’s death; even more so, Dickinson evokes question in our minds as we wonder how the nar rator can deliver this information after dying; Ryan iterates, â€Å"We’re being spoken to by a dead person†. As the stanza continues forth, the reader is notified that the room is still, that the room is like a very calm scene. Ryan emphasizes that this information distracts the reader momentarily from the idea that a dead person is communicating, rather our minds focus on this supposed stillness; we ponder if the silence allows us to hear the thoughts. Regardless, for one to make the comparison, they must be detached; no longer worrying about death. They feel the freedom to compare this storm from the perspective of both parties, the people next to the death bead and the person on it. To consider what that moment of stillness is, prior to the death, the instant of dying, and the afterlife and mourning; that instant of dying is stillness, it is before watchers react, before the dead reaches their resting place, it is serenity (Ryan 15). After these moments of serenity , the narrator brings us to the room of mourners as they had â€Å"wrung their eyes dry† (Dickinson). The implanting of past tense is intention to allow the reader to move forward as the death had already occurred. These are the moments when the watchers have gathered themselves, caught