Draw Connections: “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—” and “Because I could not stop for Death—”
Dickinson wrote many poems on the subject of death, and they often diverge from the standard conventions of the elegy, a poem that remembers and mourns someone who has died. Instead, in these two poems she invents the persona of someone experiencing death firsthand, and in doing so, she comes up with two very different scenarios. Does the moment of death feel like a continuation of our mundane existence or an entry into a more fantastic realm? Is it a cause for fear or for frustration, or is it a chance for new exploration? Dickinson cannot find a single answer to these questions, but she uses poetry to imagine many possibilities.
Document links:
Annotated text of “I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—”
Annotated text of “Because I could not stop for Death—”