Emily Dickinson: Allegorical Analysis of "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain"

In Emily Dickinson's "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" the speaker tells of the loss of her mind. It is an allegorical description of her feeling that the normal function of her mind had ended, just as the normal function of a person happens when they die. The "funeral in her brain" is a metaphor for the death of the mind. According to Paul deMann, "Thus the allegory of the funeral attempts to exteriorize and give a temporal structure to what is in fact interior and simultaneous."

By utilizing the most common of events, the speaker alienates herself from her feelings and can freely express her thoughts without addressing that these thoughts are her own torments of the mind. It allows her the freedom to present what tortures her most, without granting us permission to enter into the privacy of her own feelings.

This makes sense in that the poem begins with her "feeling" the funeral, then describing, not "feeling" throughout the narrative of the funeral, until the middle of the second to last stanza, when she returns to her own reaction of the event, and informs us that it is about what is happening to her inside of herself, and we are reminded that it is an allegorical representation of her mental state and not the story of an actual funeral.

Cynthia Griffin Wolf tells us that "Without the systematic, articulated ceremony of the funeral rites, a reader might have no idea what the speaker was describing, and the poem would lack coherence and unity; without the steady distortion of the terms by which self is defined, the reader could not apprehend the full experiential anguish of the process."

By dramatizing what occurred with her self through this allegory, she has given it a clarity that a mere straightforward description of the decent into madness could not. The speaker uses familiar words and a familiar situation (a funeral) to dramatize the loss of her mind so that it is an explanation that can be understood by those who have not experienced it. She equates it to this common situation that anyone can relate to. In the end, she is able to capitalize on this use of allegory in her description of the breaking of the plank that holds her coffin- a horrifying thought to anyone, as a means of dramatizing the horror of her personal descent.

The events are related in the past tense, to offer an explanation of what has happened to the speaker. A nostalgic retrospective, terrifying in its loneliness, and her isolation from others, yet represented without a feeling of terror. More accurately related with a sense of resignation for what she had lost, whether her life of her mind. Perhaps her choice is to show that there was a deterioration that led to her loss of herself, presenting it as a loss of a life: a funeral. In a way it was the loss of a person, or a "life" in the metaphorical sense. And by describing the funeral as if it were her own, the vision of her in her coffin, alone, describing what it was like, knowing full well that this is something that most people shudder to think of- the view from their own coffin. This further compounds the sense of her loneliness and isolation.

Further illustration the separation from her self that she feels is that she presents the events of the funeral, not the feelings. While she "…felt a Funeral, in my Brain," she did not "attend" a funeral, nor did she share how she felt at the funeral, but rather she gave the detail of the event. Throughout the poem she portrays a scene that involves a chain of events, sharing them with the reader is rather in a matter of fact manner.

Additionally, no one interacts with anyone else at the funeral. No individual is ever mentioned, no sentence is ever uttered, and no mourning attire is described. The mourners are faceless and devoid of feeling. They are just beings, and they are just there, unfeeling.

Once striking sense is that although the poem begins with the "feeling" of a funeral in her brain, there is no feeling on the part of the mourners. There are no sounds of sadness, no "muffled cries" no sobbing, no wailing, not even words from a service. There is no eulogy, no discussion of the person who was lost. It is as though she did not even exist. If she is indeed represented as the person who has died, she feels nothing from the mourners, or even the person officiating at the service. She is totally alone. The illustration is one of total isolation of the speaker, a distancing from the real world, and more importantly, from any sort of feelings by people about her.

The meter of the poem is in the classic ballad meter style of Dickinson, and gives the poem a somber tone. It adds to the message of the poem with it rhythmic tone similar to that of a funeral dirge. Here the ABDB rhyme scheme carries us through the poem until the use of slant rhyme wakes us up in the last stanza:

And I dropped down, and down-
And hit a World at every plunge,
And Finished knowing-then- (20)

Which causes us to notice that something of great importance has happened. However throughout the poem the rhyme scheme gives it a certain cadence which imitates the sound of marching, a sound that just drones on throughout the poem, and is addressed in the second stanza and discusses the impact of the sound on the speaker and how it accelerates her loss of self. The rhyme is defiantly used to set a tone for the poem and generate a certain feeling, putting us right there at the funeral. By using slant rhyme instead of the exact rhyme for the final paragraph she juxtaposes the ordinary cadence of the poem and startles us to make us understand that something extraordinary has happened.

She felt a Funeral in her Brain, and both were capitalized, alerting us to the thought that both the funeral and her brain are equally important, and tied to each other. In the following line, the Mourners are awarded equal importance, and as the speaker will go on to describe, they contributed to the "death" of her brain in their unrelenting assault on her through the use of repetition.

Kept treading-treading-till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through- (4)

The line, as well as the thought, does not end there with a period, but with a dash, because the thought goes on to describe the mourners contribution to her descent into madness, to her loss of herself. They are nameless, faceless, much as she feels that she is herself. There are no individuals, only the group. No one steps up to put a rose on her coffin- she is truly and entirely alone. Throughout the poem there are no individuals, and the unity of the group is further illustrated later in the poem where they are indeed described as being of a different race than she is.

The speaker voices her irritation with those around her and their roll in her "death"

Kept treading-treading-till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through- (4)

She seems to have had a rising irritation with people throughout the course of the poem. The image is one of being surrounded by people but never interacting with them, either in feeling or in action, except when they perpetrate unpleasant actions that hurt her to the core. This presents an additional statement on the lack of feeling of people as they contribute to her demise, unknowing and unfeeling of what they are doing as the follow the conventional behavior of her time: to come to mourn because it is what is done.

The theme of the poem is twofold- it describes a funeral and all that make it a very traditional, accepted event. The lines tend to drone on which gives it the tone of a funeral procession. Initially the least important thing seems to be the person who has died- the formality of the process is what matters. It has a somber tone with an underlying feeling of desperation of one who is trapped emotionally and figuratively and cannot escape, cannot find any help. It has a solitary feeling of isolation on all levels, both physical and emotional.

The structure in which the events are portrayed has a beginning: the arrival of the mourners, a middle: they are then seated for the funeral service and the ringing of the bells, and the end: the burial at the cemetery. This shows a metaphorical relationship in more detail, creating a parallel to let us know that this process of a progressive loss of her mind just as natural as she views the natural progression of life into death. This illustrates that it was, indeed a process, not a cataclysmic moment when everything changed.

The choice of syntax in this poem is used to underline the sense of motion and alliteration is used through use of the repetition of the same words:

treading and treading (3)
beating, beating (7)
and dropped down, down (18)

This is used to create a rhythm thorough repetition used for an auditory imagery to create the feeling of a march that just drones on and on, like the funeral dirge which has become her existence. All three stress negative actions and have serious consequences, strengthening the somber tone of the poem. They are also used to drive home the major points in the loss of her mind, and the unceasing spiral toward insanity. There is kinesthesia in the descriptions of "Kept treading-treading-till it seemed" (3) as well as in "Kept beating-beating-till I thought" (7) and "And I dropped down, and down-(18), with each double use of the word appealing to the kinesthetic sense of motion, so that we could almost feel the rhythm of the action.
With the description that they dramatized that they (people, or actually everyone in her earthly world) just kept pounding at her until it broke her.

Kept treading-treading till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through- (4)
Further, the incessant pounding at her in
Kept beating-beating-till I thought
My Mind was going numb - ! (8)

This chips away at her mind, until she can endure no more and it goes numb. The word beating is also used as homonym, being used as the verb beating in that it is not only the sound of the beating of a drum, but the beating down of a person. The "beating" goes on until she can endure no more and she "goes numb." It implies the psychological torture of her interaction with people and how it lost any meaning and just droned on an on in her mind, tormenting her in its absence of actual meaning. It was the psychological beating and the metaphor of beating like a drum, as well as the abuse that it felt like.
The use of the sound of the "Bell" is auditory imagery, reminiscent of the sadness when the "bell tolls" signaling the end- of a funeral, or of life. She instead chooses the image of herself, sitting in "Silence", then the visual imagery of …some strange Race"

Once more, action is repeated for emphasis, taking her the final step, metaphorically, the lowering of her coffin into the grave- a metaphor for the end of life,

I dropped down and down-
And hit a World at every plunge,
And Finished knowing-then- (20)

Each time a physical action is repeated it is used as alliteration for emphasis.

By utilizing these figures of speech in conjunction with the ballad meter the feeling of being marched over by the masses is successfully conveyed. The mourners are a metaphor for all the people in her life that mattered, just as the people at a funeral would be all the people who had touched her life. And because everyone mourns at one time or another it is a very unifying description of how all people affected her life. Everyone is a mourner at some point in time. Yet while people do what they are supposed to in attending her funeral, they have not done what they needed to help her in life. They have fulfilled their societal obligation to her, and nothing more. They met the image of being there for her, but in fact, were not able to help her in life. It is a definite statement of the nature of man, and how they do what looks right without doing what is really needed.

In this way she also depersonalizes everyone in her world and holds no particular individuals responsible for her mental breakdown. It was the collective "they" that were responsible for her demise. Beyond when they were directly treading on her, to when they were seated is perhaps a reference to when she secluded herself from people and she still could not escape what was going on inside her head. Clearly she holds the people in her life, and not herself, responsible for her own mental demise. They were unaware of what was happening, contributing to her demise without knowing that they were doing it.

"A Service, like a Drum-" (6) is a reference to the normalcy of everyday life that people went on living while she was falling apart. Yet the blame is laid upon them with the metaphor of "With those same Boots of Lead" again, implying that even though the funeral is over as their take her to her grave, the torment is not. "Then Space - " or loneliness, "began to toll."
The final indignity is illustrates when:

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul (10)

When they would lift the coffin from the bier to remove it from the church, they actually tore at her very sole, as if the death of her mind was still not the end. With what should normally signal the end of a funeral service, and though the treading and the beating had ended, pain still prevailed as they strip the last of her with a damage that extended to her very soul. This time it is not a hard strike at her, but now, in the softness of her soul, just a creak, a small torment at the essence of her being. They wanted there to be nothing left of her, implying that all that they had already done to her was not the end, but there was more suffering left, just when she thought the suffering was over.

This suffering was at the hands of the same people who had caused her suffering all along, with "same Boots of Lead" returning to the hard intrusiveness of their earlier offenses.

In the 4th and the 5th stanza it changes to jagged meter to further stress the chaos towards the end for the speaker. The rhythm that has kept us comforted all along in the natural order of things and how death is just a matter of fact part of life. Now the meter becomes jagged as the speaker's mental space deteriorates.
Again metaphor is used:

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear (11)

Where synecdoche dramatizes the point by reducing people to being described as an ear, to illustrate that they are made up of what they hear, a very negative explanation of what kind of people they really are. Additionally, she separates herself further form other people in telling us she, and "Silence, some strange Race" are as totally different from the people who are merely "Ears." So different as to be a different Race, also emphasizing her loneliness, with the idea that people of different races at that time would have been not only different but probably would not have related to each other, or empathized with the issues that those from another race would feel. She not only separates and isolates herself in this description, but also implies that this is an unchangeable situation for her. It is not merely that the people do not understand or relate to her, but the implication that closeness with them is not even possible.

At this point the speakers point of view also changes and she goes from speaking about a funeral in the abstract top focusing on her. Suddenly it is no longer a story about a funeral, but about what happened to her and then reason is shown to make no sense to her. Suddenly it is about the speaker,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here- (16)

Next she dramatizes her isolation one step further by describing herself and the other race as "Wrecked, solitary, here-" telling us certainly that there is no hope for her or others like her, that they are broken and alone. The "Silence" can also be another reference to her isolation with its implication of separation from the rest of the world. While they are described as an " Ear" she is trapped alone in silence. This would make her (the silent one) useless to everyone else (the Ear). Further, the implication is that she does not need communication with others, which the "Ears" seem to rely on, and it is something that they share from which she is excluded.

When in the last stanza:

And I dropped down, and down-
And hit a world at every plunge (19)

She portrays dying on different worlds to try and find the right world and be able to find herself. This illustrates that she continues to try to save herself at every possible opportunity.

The word "And" is used at the beginning of every line in this final stanza, giving further rhythm to the descent- used to emphasize the dropping and subsequent "hit a world at every plunge" as you can almost hear her body at it is further tormented. She does not merely sinks into the abyss, or drop into the grave, but suffers all the way down. The implication is that there was pain at every attempt, as she "hit a World-at every plunge," rather than just passing worlds on her way down, instead she hit each one.

Paula Bennet describes this plunge's religious implication by stating, "There is neither a sustaining God nor a sustaining scaffold of meaning to support her. Like the trapdoor on a gallows or like the planks supporting a coffin until it is dropped into the grave, the 'bottom' drops out of reality." This presents her idea regarding God and his existence or at least his role in her life. It further illustrates her loneliness to show that even God could not help her.

The image of "And then a Plank in Reason, broke," gives us a dreadful vision- a coffin, awaiting its solemn trip into the grave is instead plunged into the hole in the ground when the plank breaks. This provides a vision of pain, or a final indignity, depriving the person of leaving the world in a respectable manner. Perhaps the implication of society delivering the final blow in "dropping" her, allowing her to "plunge" into her grave. A final note that people not only pushed her over the edge, but gave no regard for her human dignity in letting her fall until the very end of understanding. This further portrays how long this descent took, that it was not in a brief instant, but a long, laborious process in which she "dropped down and down".

Further, she accentuates her frantic efforts to survive, as she "hit a World at every plunge". Her pain until the final moments is dramatized, illustrating her will and efforts to somehow survive, not giving up until there was nothing left- no other worlds to try.
Until she had hit every world and still descended, "Finished knowing -then-" but then letting us know that perhaps it was not the end because the stanza ends with a dash, implying that it is not the end. This could be a statement about eternal life, that even after death of a person or even a mind, that they someone still go on.

A note of importance is that the final line of this poem was removed from the published version. The last line, as written was

Crashed-got through (21)

The implication of the plunge ending with a "Crash", a violent landing, and then "got through" could let us know that it was not necessarily the end of her existence. Perhaps a reference to the afterlife, implying that there is something beyond earthly life, perhaps an afterlife where she will find her place. "got through" implies something positive at the end, in that for her, it did not end at all. This addresses her feelings of hope in the end, in opposition to the implication that exists if we view "And Finished knowing-then" leaves much less hope, except that it also does not end. The final printed line ends with a dash, and the final unpublished ends without punctuation. Perhaps this suggests that she still does not know when it ends, either life or herself. With either ending, it is not final. No matter how great the loss of the mind or of life, the implication is that there is still a part of someone that in some way does not end. In end, her questioning nature prevails and does not die, even if she believes that she has lost her mind.

Citations

Selections from Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson: A Supplement to the Heath Anthology of American Literature, Second edition, volume 2. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

(http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/280.htm) from Lyric Time:
Paul deMann, Dickinson and the Limits of Genre. Copyright © 1979 by The Johns Hopkins UP.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/280.htm
From Emily Dickinson. Copyright © 1988 by Cynthia Griffin Wolff.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/a_f/dickinson/280.htm From Emily Dickinson, Woman Poet. Copyright © 1990 by Paula Bennet. Reprinted by permission of the author

280 in Manuscript from The Manuscript Books of Emily Dickinson, Volume I.
Ed. R. W. Franklin. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1981.
Copyright © 1981 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College