The Attitudes of Death by the Deceased essays

The Attitudes of Death by the Deceased essays Emily Dickinson and Randall Jarrell both use a unique style of narration, having the deceased speak. Only through this manifestation do these poems have a lasting impact and greater meaning. Both in Dickinsons I heard a Fly Buzz-and in Jarrells Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, death is portrayed through the words of the posthumous speakers without the orthodox conception of heaven, but instead with an anomalistic manifestation of death as purely the end of ones existence; Using its own unique metaphor each poem brings into view the dismal transition from life to the withered state of death. In Dickensons I heard a Fly Buzz- a simple fly is used in the ceremonious transition from life to death as God is absent. The central figure of the scene is expected to make a glorious exit and the build-up is just right for it, but at the moment of climax it was not God that came but there interposed a Fly. The fly comes between the speaker and the onlookers, between life and death. No longer is her family and friends, or the material items that have been the focus of her attention throughout her life important to her, in her last moments her attention is on the fly. It is the fact that the fly obscures the ritual of dying, flying between the light and me, that allows the speaker to see the fact of death. The fly obliterates the speakers false notions of death and becomes a reminder of her ghastly condition and decay. The only sound of heavenly music is the uncertain stumbling buzz of the fly. The buzz grows until it takes up her entire field of perception and comes between her and the light until the windows fail and she is left in darkness, in ignorance, and in death. It is then that she can not see to see as she is ignorant. The fly reduced human life to an elementary and meaningless level. Ins...