“I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died”

By Emily Dickinson

Is death nothingness? If so, is it ironic that we hear the poem’s speaker rely the experience of death to its readers?

What do you make of the idea that the eyes no longer see, but consciousness continues enough for the speaker to communicate this experience of death?

Comment on Dickinson’s use of her imagination in this poem? Is this poem’s message one of faith or spirituality, assuming there is a difference?