I felt a Funeral, in my Brain Poem Analysis S.D. & B.L I felt a Funeral, in my Brain

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading — treading — till it seemed That Sense was breaking through —   And then a Plank in Reason, broke,        And when they all were seated,       And I dropped down, and down — A Service, like a Drum —  And hit a World, at every plunge,       Kept beating — beating — till I thought       And Finished knowing — then — My Mind was going numb — And then I heard them lift a Box      And creak across my Soul With those same Boots of Lead, again,      Then Space — began to toll, As all the Heavens were a Bell,        And Being, but an Ear, And I, and Silence, some strange Race,        Wrecked, solitary, here —

Summary (paraphrase) The speaker imagines a funeral in her head, seeing mourners (people grieving) walking this way and that. The mourners get seated and the service begins, but rather than a quiet religious ceremony, she hears only pounding which makes her feel as though her brain is going numb. The mourners (them) lift the casket and with boots of lead walk across her. Then she hear church bells but is left all alone with silence. She feels “wrecked”. Then as the wooden floor of her mind (plank of reason) suddenly breaks, the speaker falls, hitting worlds on her way down. What’s at the bottom of this fall is unclear because the poem ends abruptly.

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. She became recognized as a poet after her death and is known for writing unusual poetry. She was an excellent student, despite missing long stretches of the school year due to frequent illness and depression. It is believed that her fragile emotional state led to her leaving school, as a teenager, to live on the family homestead. She lived a reclusive life there and wrote hundreds of letters and filled notebooks with poetry. When her mother became ill she became her caregiver. Scholars have speculated that she suffered from conditions such as agoraphobia, depression and/or anxiety. She also was treated for a painful ailment of her eyes. It is believed that she had a romantic friendship with a man who died in 1884. She died in 1886 (bio.com)  

Theme Ideas Descent into Madness (“My mind was going numb” 8) Struggle with Depression (“And I, and Silence… Wrecked, solitary, here –” 15-16) Mortality (Funeral = Death)

Title A funeral is a “ceremony at which a dead person is buried or cremated”. Synonyms – burial, entombment, internment, sepulture, formal event, Connotative meaning of “funeral” Death, loss, grief, gone, alone, over, isolation The speaker is not seeing a real funeral but is feeling like a funeral is happening in her mind.

Research "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain," like many of the Dickinson’s deals with the subject of death. In particular, she likes to deal with the subject of the moment of death and burial” (Shmoop Editorial Team). This is interesting because the poem ends very abruptly, “and finished knowing In this poem the speaker is experiencing death but it is not a physical death – it is a mental death. In the last stanza the poet uses the metaphor of a plank (a board over a precipice) to describe the speaker’s fall in to irrationality (City University of New York).

Research The poem “traces the speaker’s descent into madness. It is a terrifying poem for both the speaker and the reader…the reader experiences the speaker’s descending madness and the horror most of us feel about going crazy” (City University of New York ) The speaker uses a metaphor – compares mourners to pain and the treading of the mourners (the pain) is pushing her down (City University of New York)

Symbols Funeral … Her mind doesn’t just feel like a funeral, there is a funeral being held inside of her head. The idea of a funeral represents a part of her dying. Body, Mind & Soul … Eg) Dickinson uses brain in line one, rather than mind, as the brain represents more of a physical existence rather than the powers of the mind or the soul.

Tone The tone of the poem is despairing, serious, accepting.

Shift and Poetic Devices There is a subtle shift in the poem in the last line of stanza three when the speaker says, “Then Space — began to toll”. This suggests a change from the funeral, the death, to a different experience – It seems like the funeral is over and now the speaker is experiencing a passing as she drops “down and down” through her past, her memories and then abruptly it is over. And then she knows something she didn’t know before – she “Finished knowing”. Maybe she realizes a truth about living and dying. The rhyme scheme does not finish in pattern at the end of the poem which parallels the abrupt ending to the speaker’s experience. Whatever her experience at that moment was, she

Poetic Devices Dickinson’s distinctive use of dashes made her poetry unique. Her work often captures an atmosphere of isolation and spiritual ecstasy.  This poem is written the format of common measure which involves four-line stanzas (quatrains) that rhyme abcb and alternate between four-stress and three-stress iambic lines (poetryinvoice). And then I heard them lift a Box      And creak across my Soul (sound imagery) With those same Boots of Lead, again,      Then Space — began to toll,

Poetic Devices And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum —  (simile) Kept beating — beating — till I thought       My Mind was going numb —

Golden Line “And I dropped down, and down – And I hit a World, at every plunge,” Lines 18 - 19 This is my Golden Line because it is alliterative (dropped down and down) and the sound is cacaphonic – adds a harshness to the poem’s reality/message. But it also makes you feel the physical sense of “drop” at the same time as you think about the figurative meaning which is about the speaker losing her connection to reality and maybe even her memories, even though she tries to hold on by remembering special times in her life (a world at every plunge).

This is an excerpt from another famous poem by Emily Dickinson This is an excerpt from another famous poem by Emily Dickinson. It reflects a very different attitude towards the idea of dying and experiencing death – physical or emotional death.

Works Cited Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. Shmoop Editorial Team. "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain Poem Text." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 30 Sep. 2015. "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain." I Felt a Funeral in My Brain. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/funeral.html "Emily Dickinson." Emily Dickinson. Web. 2 Oct. 2015. http://www.poetryinvoice.com/poets/emily-dickinson