Two of Emily Dickinson's poems, "Because I Could Not Stop For Death"
and "I Heard A Fly Buzz-When I Died," are both about one of life's few
certainties: death. However, that is where the similarities end. Although both
poems were created less than a year apart by the same poet, their ideas about
what lies after death differ. In one, there appears to be life after death, but
in the other there is nothing. Only a number of clues in each piece help us
determine which poem believes in what. In the piece, "Because I Could Not
Stop For Death," we are being told the tale of a woman who is being taken
away by Death. This is our first indication that this poem believes in an
afterlife. In most religions, where there is a grim reaper like specter, this
entity will deliver a person's soul to another place, usually a heaven or a
hell. In the fifth stanza, Death and the woman pause before "...a House
that seemed A Swelling of the Ground- The Roof was scarcely visible- The Cornice
in the Ground-" (913). Although the poem does not directly say it, it is
highly probable that this grave is the woman's own. It is also possible the
woman's body already rests beneath the soil in a casket. If this is at all
accurate, then her spirit or soul may be the one who is looking at the
"house." Spirits and souls usually mean there is an afterlife
involved. It isn't until the sixth and final stanza where the audience obtains
conclusive evidence that "Because I Could Not Stop For Death" believes
in an afterlife. The woman recalls how it has been "...Centuries- and yet
feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads were toward
Eternity-" (913). To the woman, it has been a few hundred years since Death
visited her, but to her, it has felt like less than 24 hours. Since the body
cannot live on for hundreds of years, then it must be none other then the soul
who has come to the realization that so much time has passed. The final part
with the horses refers to the horse drawn carriage the woman was riding in when
she passed away. In those two final lines, the horses seem to be leading her
into Eternity, possibly into an afterlife. It is just the exact opposite is
Dickinson's other poem, "I Heard A Fly Buzz-When I Died," With this
particular piece of literature, the clues which point to the disbelief in an
afterlife are fewer and not as blatant, but are all still present. In this poem,
a woman is lying in bed with her family standing all around waiting for her
eventual death. While the family is waiting for her to pass on, she herself is
waiting for "...the King..." (914). No, we're not talking about Elvis,
but instead this King is some sort of omnipotent being, a god. Later as the
woman dies, her eyes (or windows as they are referred to in the poem) fail, then
she "...could not see to see-" (914). When she says this, what she
seems to mean is she could not see any of the afterlife or Kings she expected to
be there. The woman's soul drifted off into nothingness with no afterlife to
travel to. To conclude, the beliefs of the two Dickinson poems in regards to
life after death differ significantly. In one, life does exist, in the other it
does not. To determine which poem believes in what, one must dig through the
clues in each.