I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

The Fly possesses a rich cultural and scientific history. Because of 19th-century educational trends and Dickinson’s intellectually curious nature, readers can safely assume she had a passing knowledge of the symbolic weight behind her decision to use a fly.

In Western symbiotics and mythologies, the Fly frequently represents dread, panic, suffering, and malice. Dickinson, who read and re-read the King James Bible, would have been familiar with both the plague of flies on the Egyptians in Exodus and the demonic Lord of the Flies Beelzebub. Premodern creators called upon these connections in both visual art and theater. Shakespeare, calling it a breese, showed that the Fly’s small, annoying bites intensify over time, halting progress and stymying plans. In Troilus and Cressida, the character of Nestor says a herd of cows receives more damage from flies than from large predators like tigers. Shakespeare echoes and elevates this annoyance in Antony and Cleopatra when Cleopatra’s navy retreats like “the breese upon her, like a cow in June” (Miller, David. “SHAKESPEAREAN ENTOMOLOGY.” TUATARA, vol. 1, no. 2, May 1948, pp. 11-12). In these lines, the Fly transfigures into a force of termination and misfortune. Its appearance disrupts and disturbs. Readers can trace the image of flies as harbingers of suffering back as far as ancient Greece.