Dickinson, I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died

ratings we are in junior English and we are continuing with our conversations regarding Emily Dickinson and today now we're going to work with a a really famous poem of Dickinson's on page four eleven of your handles called I heard a fly buzz when I die this I think I've already referenced in an earlier lecture Dickinson played the game of dying I'm gonna call it a game she clearly clearly thought a lot about those final moments when finally your heart for three two one flatline and you're dead you're done it's all over she definitely gave time and thought to that moment in her life she saw it clearly she saw it as an inevitable moment it's not like anybody gets out of that project and since it's inevitable and it's coming why not give a little thought in preparation to it what will it be like now there's two interpretations of this poem both a negative one and a positive one that is to say there's one view of this poem that's almost like humorous in other words Dickinson kind of sees it as funny what happens in the final moment of her death and then there's another view of this that's a little darker interpretation and what I will do is I will lend the opportunity to you to decide how you read this poem now these reading of these Emily Dickinson poems is kind of a compounding project after you've read a few of them you kind of start to get a custom to the lay of the land if you will and then you can kind of start to get more of a sense of what's being said right away let's say it for example you can figure out what it is that she's saying about the moment of her death in this poem I'm reading with you now on page four eleven all right I heard a fly buzz what I died the stillness in the room was like the stillness in the air between the heaves of storm the eyes around and wrung them dry and breaths were gathering firm for that last onset when the king of be witnessed in the room I willed my keepsakes signed away what portion to me be assignable and then it was there interposed a fly with blue uncertain stumbling buds between the light and me and then the windows failed that I could not see to see now let's talk about this set of lines for just a second what exactly is it that she says in this poem well first of all let's just put it in your notes this way this is a poem about a dead person writing a dead person speaking yes okay she says I heard a fly buzz when I died alright so in other words already you're not going to be working at the literal level here dead people don't write poems about dying yes okay so this is already a work of the imagination huh in other words she's imagining what it's like when she dies notice the first thing she points out line two how still the room is what room do you imagine well probably the very room she lived in all her lives her bedroom that was how you died because she didn't die in hospitals in Emily's day in today's day of course most of the time people die in hospitals those buildings that we drive by and pray we never have to go inside and when we do go inside it's kind of a foreigner a strange place it does beg a really interesting three bit question if you had to die in your final moments where would you prefer to do it in a room you've never seen before in your life a hospital room or in the room where you've hung out all you know all your life if you know wherever you live it's an interesting question right some students have reported I guess if I think about it I probably would rather die where where I'm kind of surrounded by the people I know him and my house and stuff my home notice the room is still notice she says the stillness in the room was like oh what's a comparison using like arezzo jot it down to two B what do we call that a comparison using like ER has is what we call a it looks like the word smile doesn't it but it's not the word smile it's the word simile si mi le right assimilate as a comparison using my Korres what was the stillness of the room light the stillness in the room was like the stillness in the air - before the heaves of storm and in other words if you've ever been around a storm when you know it's about to hit but then there's this bizarre stillness right before right you know the wind for example is about to come you know maybe rain lightning thunders about to happen but all of a sudden there's this weird call when you were a little kid you're like cool it's got a play you don't leave that's what none of them right okay if you live for example in Oklahoma in Tornado Alley they teach their children early on there's a moment right before the big tornado happens and his son comes out and it's beautiful and it's still and it's so nice and you want to go out there yeah no not so much right it's like those who live in tsunami areas where tidal waves happen where the water all the sudden go way back from the shoreline out into the ocean and children if they not taught right will go home cool let's go like pick up stuff no because all of a sudden was gonna be a 30-foot wall of water coming which is why the water went away there's that still moment she says right before I died it was really still in the room like that look at the next stanza uh-oh she's not alone she's not alone she doesn't die alone she doesn't imagine dying alone which acts er it has a really interesting question in 3d if you had to die would you rather die alone or would you rather die with other people there and some students will say well that's a really weird question Emily Dickinson has made me think about that now a different way I guess because on the one hand dying alone I suppose is kind of like well I guess I've lived kind of you know my life I might as well just die you know alone others will say I would really like to be surrounded by some people of course the reality is if those people care for you and you're dying they're gonna be sad right take a look the eyes around had run them dry what does that mean had wrung them dry well they've cried until they can't cry in other words their eyes can't their eyes are now dry they cry until they're drying down their sight now's the time it's time it's time to leave and breaths were gathering ferb for that last onset when the king be witnessed in the room now that's an interesting set of lines in other words the breath the breathing of the people are like okay this is it the last seconds when the person stops breathing and the King capital K the king the witnessed witness needs seen in the room King what Keith well now this is an interesting question and again Dickenson didn't leave behind letters and journals and notes to tell us what she was talking about when she said King there's been a couple of readings in this poem I won't ask you to write them both down in your notes what is the king here means God God that is to say after Emily dies she knows she's going to heaven where she will meet God and she pictures maybe God is by kind of inviting her to heaven it's okay you lived no it's time to go bye-bye you have to leave the park and go to the van you can't stay forever at the park come on it's time to go bye-bye the King got here okay and if you have a Christian view of the afterlife or Emily Dickinson maybe she could have see Scott that way right the key there is the second-leading and it's a little bit darker reading and the king here is actually the Grim Reaper death in other words she kind of looks past the shoulders of the people at the heads of the people who are closest people there and all of a sudden she sees death maybe all dressed in black the king of the underworld for the Greeks was named Hades and Hades comes and says now let's go right okay that's the test and so there's to boot some of you will say I kind of know which one of these two views is a more attractive right as I think about it do you want to see a certain kind of figure that says it's okay or a figure that says you now let's go right look at the third stanza uh-oh before she died she willed her keepsakes what does that mean see that's a very interesting term my students have said you know I guess I really haven't thought about that but when somebody dies especially if they have time and they kind of know that they're dying well they have to decide what they're gonna do with all their stuff their keepsakes like the stuff that they have that's there's a lot of that stuff might be worth money some of that might not be worth much money but it might be really important to you who gets that stuff who who gets it so she's taken care of distributing all of her stuff interestingly Emily Dickinson herself willed what about this very poem that she wrote what did she want this poem to happen to this poem destroy it burn it we would have never been able to read this poem if those people had followed her her orders right we're kind of happy that they didn't I willed my keepsakes signed away what portion of me be assignable in other words what I could give away I gave away I mean there's there's no point unless you're an Egyptian do you know about the Egyptians what did they do yeah the Pharaohs right would make sure they got buried with all their stuff it's kind of funny to think of these terms all right buried with all their stuff why come well they can imagine death is a journey or on the other side you just woke up just like you do when you take a nap and you wake up and then on the other side you need to have all your stuff with you of course there's one or two treasure seekers right who in the 19th century said sweet and then they went and found all of these tombs right and they're like whoo there's like just lots of stuff buried with these guys and some of that stuff was worth some serious Bank right notice she says I will dawei and I signed away and I'm ready to go stillness in the room when all of a sudden they're interposed you can guess what that word means a fly notice the word fly is capitalized just like the word King was capitalized you get this huge house fly that enters the room notice she describes the fly with blue uncertain stumbling but of course that word buzz is our word we like that word in literary analysis onomatopoeia which of course for children is always funny but no no onomatopoeia just simply means a word that has it sound contained in the word buzz is a word that when you say the word it has the same meaning and sound that the word will make right notice this fly she says comes in with a adjectives matter for Emily Dickinson what kind of buzz a stumbling buzz in other words it's almost like the fly is trying to get out maybe trying to escape out of the room between the light and me and then the windows failed and then I could not see to see how's the poem end right she dives you can't see anymore the way she kind of thinks about dying is what you can see out of your eyes and once your eyes can't see anything they shut it's done it's over now let's talk about two interpretations of this poem at 2a and 2a when one interpretation of this poem is that Emily Dickinson almost season is kind of funny humorous if you will but there in this very serious somber moment when everybody's cried their eyes out of it all of a sudden in this most serious moment in comes a fly and it's the last thing she notices this she goes notice it isn't the people sitting there it's this fly trying to get out of the room right it's almost funny I've had students that say what a funny poem it-it's like so serious and everybody's like so somber and all of a sudden if she can see it I like she'd be like huh that's funny look there's a fly trying to get out of the room funny interesting a poet sees things differently and so you get a sense that she imagines when I die I think I see things differently than most people whereas most people would be like oh no no it's time to die it's time to die it's dead for me I'm gonna be like whoa dude there's a fly better against coming that's kind of weird in some ways it's almost metaphoric isn't it the fly trying to escape is like the energy or her suppose solar spirit trying to escape see there's different there's a way to see this in almost the humorous and positive way there is a second way though and it's scholars have done this where they put the word keen capital K together with the word fly often when you're a senior at law in high school you will read a book a novel called Lord of the Flies which is a famous novel that's a disturbing novel flies of course is referencing what Milton the great British poet would reference as evil flies of course we know feed on dead things carry on don't they right so for example if you're walking in the woods you see a dead animal often you will see a fly won't you that rip that's a that's a way to kind of think about death in a bad way not a good way right and so there's a second reading of this poem that says in this poem Dickinson is really talking about how terrible it is to die that the only thing that remains when you're gone is for the Flies to come right the bad the Flies the yucky so there's kind of two views of this notice Dickinson doesn't tell you which one of these two views is her view right she just kind of leaves it up to you the reader to decide so let's do a quick obviously a quick finishing of our annotation at to be we mentioned already the similes here right the simile of that that's mentioned that's an easy one that you can write down into the notice that simile of the stillness in the room was like the stillness right before the storm remember it to be rhetoric our hdto ric rhetoric not what the poet says but how the poet says it notice as well all the dashes but if you'll think about it that makes sense because what is it that the breath and the eyes and sight do when you're dying it starts getting shorter and shorter right and more broken the dashes will break up the lines in the same way that breathing come shorter or the eyes start blinking and then all of a sudden one time in your life your eyes will blink shut and I'll be all she says they'll be they'll be over right so the blinking are kind of like the dashes how about 3/8 what is your favorite movie it sounds strange to say it this way but what is your favorite movie about dying what is your favorite movie about somebody 10 - somebody dying and it's funny because a lot of times my students like I don't know I don't even have movies about dying really list your five greatest movies and ask yourself the simple question if somebody dies in them go ahead I dare you I challenge you to do this and some of you will say why guess I've never really thought about that but the movies that I watch not a lot of dying well now that's interesting why is that why is it that maybe we don't like texts that have to do with diet cuz I don't want to think about dying because it's not gonna happen to you you're never gonna die oh it's not gonna happen to the people who you love they're never gonna go I don't want to think about it why not did see Emily Emily Dickens alas why not because it kind of freaks me out freaks you out why because of all the things in your life that's the one absolute certainty is that you know that things gonna happen I just don't wanna think about that Emily Dickinson says yeah hi Misha but if you start at least thinking about it at least you can go a little bit more accustomed to the idea maybe it's not so scary and if it's not so scary then you can start living your life without fear because one of the greatest fears in human existence is the fear of death it's there for you a movie or a text that says something about being brave or being courageous where the fundamental truth of the film is don't be afraid do you have a movie like that or maybe better do you have a favorite song like that a song that actually says to you it's okay everything's are you'll figure it out so I'm gonna be okay you can kind of write that down all right finally 3b how do you interpret this poem see it's a it's a 3b it's a personal interpretation a couple of questions um what do you think about death and dying do you think it's a good idea to think about death and dying or is it something that you should just completely ignore until the moment that it happens some students will say yeah you shouldn't think about it think about living don't think about that other students will say you know it's kind of like the penny then I picked up once there's always two sides to it funny thing so if I were to pick up the penny and say I only want to see one side of this coin you would say yeah that's other words for it to be a coin there's got to be the other side for there to be life there must be said it word how do you how do you come down on this one and finally how do you interpret this poem do you see this poem is sad do you see this poem is funny do you see this poem is positive do you see this home is negative how do you read this poem the fact that the fly shows up right at the end of her life it's kind of an interesting question if you were going to die and something non-human had to show up some kind of animal what would you like to have show up because her hair is a fly which is not a very romantic kind of immuno image or bug or whatever is there something you'd like to have show up maybe it would be some kind of large animal maybe it would be a tiger maybe some kind of big bird or something like that right okay you can kind of decide to write it down alright guys there you go I heard a fly buzz when I did

Channel: tim mcgee

Views: 14,438

Rating: 4.8857141 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: lVVo1K4wtgE

Length: 18min 17sec (1097 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 12 2014