I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

Nineteenth-century funerary customs provide a vital context for understanding Dickinson’s death poetry. People were much more accustomed and open about death due to higher mortality rates and a lack of a formalized funeral industry. Women held the responsibility of caring for the dying, readying corpses for burial and memorial, and financial planning for the services (DeGrasse, Carol M. “'That Dark Parade’: Emily Dickinson and the Victorian ‘Cult of Death.’” M.A., the University of Texas at Tyler, 2017, pp. 1–29). People in New England especially focused on “beautifying” loss through “ritualized mourning,” such as the curation of deathbed settings, stopping clocks at the time of death, color-coded attire, flowers, and covered mirrors (DeGrasse 4-5, 13).

Women’s mortuary duties were essential so that the dying family member could complete the requirements of “the Good Death.” Starting in the 1400s with Ars moriendi, a book about dying well, Europeans often formed guidelines towards meeting a peaceful passing. By the 1800s, many of these traditions congealed into the Good Death. The custom valorized stoicism, courage, and piety upon the deathbed . The process depended highly on the act of witness and comfort. For the Victorians, the dying gifted their mourners with farewells of wisdom, love, and spiritual insight. If the dying express fear, it could mark them for damnation. Even more so, the way one died reflected on the quality of the person’s life and afterlife. This concept fits well within the Calvinist worldview of predetermination. As a result, it became a frequent topic of sermons (DeGrasse 18).

People also held onto their deceased ones’ memories through memento mori, objects linked to the person’s identity or death. Popular items included mourning jewelry, mourners’ handbooks, and locks of hair (DeGrasse 14-16). Visitors frequented familial burial sites as cemeteries provided a community gathering space (Washburn, Michael. “Decomposure: Mortician, Medievalist, and Video Sage Caitlin Doughty Tries to Change the Way Americans Think about Death.” The University of Chicago Magazine, The University of Chicago, 2013). The areas centralized where “commerce took place, and lovers walked through the graces to meet at night” (Washburn). Dickinson, who grew up across from a cemetery, and had experienced a minimum of two close personal losses already, had at least passively engaged with the Death-rich culture of New England. “I have walked there sweet summer evenings and read the names on the stones, and wondered who would come and give me the same memorial,” she wrote in an 1851 letter (Dickinson, Emily. Emily Dickinson Letters. Edited by Emily Fragos, Alfred A. Knopf, 2011). Her imagining herself in the place of the dead had been clearly on her mind before she wrote “I heard a Fly buzz” in 1862.

These questions increased during the Civil War, which reinforced the values of the Good Death while disrupting its process (Franson, Melissa. “Dying a ‘Good Death’ in the Civil War.” WSKG, National Public Radio & Public Broadcasting Service, 3 Feb. 2016). Soldiers who died on the battlefield could not experience the participatory aspects of passing (Mead, Rebecca. “The Rise of the Artisanal Funeral.” The New Yorker, Condé Nast, 23 Nov. 2015). Embalming became a popular solution for preserving the soldiers’ corpses for shipment home to their families. Morticians leveraged this skill to professionalize the industry, eliminating the need for female family members to care for the dead. The embalming trend and prevalence of men dying caused many people, including Dickinson, to reconsider what constitutes a good death.

Dickinson saturated many of her poems with the traditions of the Good Death. Nevertheless, many of her poems disrupt and converse those traditions’ validity and insight into the hereafter.