Emily Dickinson's Symbolism Of Death In Because I Heard A Fly Buzz

To most, death is the hardest part of living, it is the final destination and if one believes in an afterlife they are ultimately going to heaven or hell. However, death is not what one wants to experience, it is human nature to want to live because after life there is no real guarantee where one may go. Children are taught to fear death, taught to avoid it, and taught not to speak on it, and with all these rules, we humans cannot avoid thinking about the idea of dying, especially how and when death can come knocking on our doors. In contrast to today’s century, during the nineteenth century most people were well aware of death and there were more people okay with death. Most women and men would die of diseases. Though death was common so was the fear that death was the end of the century. Romantic writer, Emily Dickinson’s views on death appear to be nonchalant. In “Because I could not stop for Death -” and “I heard a Fly buzz -” Dickinson attempts to portray death as less frightening by characterizing it as an insignificant event and comparing it to a bad date.
Symbolism plays an important role as the poem mainly focuses on the fly. The idea that this little fly, this tiny creature, can distract her so much from this big event death, shows death has no real significance. The fact that a fly is a distraction also represents rather death being a final destination it is possibly just pause in time. Essentially the pause is represented when the “Windows failed - and then / I could not see to see -” (15-16). The insignificance portrayed towards death is one way Dickinson explains her claim that death is not