Death is a certainty in life that many find fascinating, yet struggle understanding why and how one dies. Emily Dickinson, a nineteenth-century poet, found herself immensely fascinated by the concept of death. Attempting to satisfy this curiosity, Dickinson would write letters to people who witnessed death, inquiring information on what they experienced. Her earliest known letter was sent at the age of 23 to Reverend Edward Everett Hale in attempt to receive information on her friend Benjamin F. Newton's death. In her letter she said, "I often hoped to know if his last hours were cheerful, and if he was willing to die (Dewsbury 42). Thus, translating her view about death into her writings such as "I heard a Fly buzz-when I died-" and "I felt a funeral in my brain . Dickinson's fascination for grasping an understanding about death provides reasoning for me to believe she is portraying a unique theme of death through the perspective of the dying and provides symbols revealing multiple processes of dying within these two poems. Emily Dickinson's poems, "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died-" and "I Felt a Funeral in my Brain both share a unique theme of death. Intrigued by the mystery on how one experiences dying, Dickinson would often send letters to people that witnessed someone dying with questions about the death. Her vast acquisition of such knowledge about death leads many critics to believe these poems portray views of death from the perspective of the one dying. One such critic, Paula Hendrickson writes, "Dickinson would go as far as asking...for details of the death (5). I believe Dickinson's pursuit of such details influenced the vivid details related to the progression of death in her writings. The progression of death is uniquely presented in Dickinson's "I heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died , by allowing us to imagine the speaker looking back upon his death from an afterlife. The opening line presents us with the speaker lo