Emily Dickinson's works addressed many dark subjects, including death. In the poem #465, "I heard a fly buzz"; Dickinson uses diction and imagery to express the last thoughts and sensations of the narrator while dying, and the ultimate emptiness in death. The theme of death is expressed by many ideas in the poem. Some examples of this are: the focus on the fly; the description of mourners gathered around the dying speaker, the idea of "light"; the "willing of keepsakes"; and the reference to the loss of sight and consciousness, ("and no longer could I see to see").
             The first line expresses the theme of death literally in the words "when I died", and connotatively in the use of the words "I heard a fly buzz". A fly lays its eggs in dead organisms; a decaying corpse is often seen "swarming with flies". The placement of words in the line, the fly being heard buzzing after the death of the speaker, reinforces the idea of the speaker's physical death and decay. The capitalization of the word "fly" further implies the significance of the fly to the speaker.
             In the next three lines of the poem, the "Stillness in the Room" is described. The "stillness" was previously implied by the speaker's focus on something as small and mundane as a fly, since it is likely that if there were other noises or distractions in the room, the speaker would not hear the fly buzzing. The stillness was a result of the anticipation of death. "Between the heaves of Storm", suggests that there is an eerie quiet present just before a great deal of commotion, in this case the mourning following death.
             The presence of people, and relation to the theme of death, is expressed in lines 5. It reads, "The Eyes around-had wrung them dry". In correlation to the poem, people may be observi
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