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Submitted by zoezoe on April 20, 2008
Category: English
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“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” by Emily Dickinson is an exceptionally formal and poetic illustration of the experience of an individual’s mind confronting its own breakdown of previously held beliefs. Dickinson applies the general metaphor of the common ceremonial funeral throughout the work to communicate to the reader the sense of spiritual breakdown of the speaker. This metaphor is an ironic one, as the speaker’s disintegration of faith can solely be expressed through a description of a traditionally religious ritual. Incredibly insightful of the workings of the human mind and soul, Dickinson is able to depict, using imagery and concrete metaphors, the almost incommunicable feelings of an individual undergoing the stages of a devastating collapse of religious faith in “I felt a funeral, in my Brain”.
The first stanza introduces a physical and literal burial of a supposed loved one at a funeral to be easily compared to giving up or losing one’s faith forever. “Brain”, in the first line, refers to the actual body part as well as the conceptual mind of the speaker (Dickinson 1). The” Mourners” in the following lines are interpreted as unpleasant events or feelings ceaselessly running through the speaker’s head that are the cause of the spiritual collapse (2-3). After the continual “treading—treading” of the unpleasant thoughts in the speaker’s mind, he or she begins to realize the propinquity of his or her imminent spiritual ruin in lines three and four, “…it seemed/That Sense was breaking through-“ (3-4).
The second stanza further describes the funeral and employs sound imagery to delineate the speaker’s ever increasing fears and doubts about his or her religious stability. The ephemeral calm and silence of the mourners as they sit is a brief reprieve for the speaker before the “Service, like a Drum—“begins to further batter the speaker’s tortured mind until it feels “numb”(6- 8). The...
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