AMERICAN LITERATURE

Course Code: ENGL-3123

Instructor: Ms. Amna Aslam
Poem: I felt a funeral in my brain
INTRODUCTION
 Emily Dickinson’s “ I Felt a Funeral in my Brain”(1861) uses an extended
metaphor of death and funerals to convey the death of her sanity. Through the
imagery of mourners and coffins, 'I felt a Funeral, in my Brain' explores death,
suffering, madness and The Nature of Despair themes.
 Written in 1861
 Written by Emily Dickinson
 Structure: Five Stanzas (20 lines poem divided into five Quatrains)
 Imagery: Mourners, Coffins
 Tone: sad, passive, serious, Accepting.
 Key Themes: Psycho-Analysis, Madness, Death
 Meaning: The speaker is experiencing the death of her sanity, causing her both
suffering and madness.
 EMILY DICKINSON’S ‘I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN’: POEM
I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treating-treating-till it seemed
That sense was breaking through-

And when they all were seated,

A service, like a Drum-
Kept beating-beating-till I thought
My mind was going numb-
EMILY DICKINSON’S ‘I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN’: POEM

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-

And then a plank in reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down-
And hit a world, at every plunge,
And Finished Knowing- then-
 Stanza one: The structure of the stanzas in this poem replicates the
proceedings of a real funeral, therefore, the first stanza discusses
the wake. This stanza concerns what is happening before the
funeral starts.
 Stanza two: The second stanza focuses on the service when the
speaker’s funeral begins.
 Stanza three: The third stanza takes place following the service
and is the procession. The coffin is lifted and moved outside to
where it will be buried. At the end of this stanza, the speaker
mentions the funeral bell that will focus on stanza four.
 Stanza four: The fourth stanza picks up immediately from the third and discusses the
funeral toll. The bell's toll is maddening to the speaker and reduces her senses to just
her hearing.
 Stanza five: The final stanza focuses on the burial whereas the coffin is lowered into
the grave, and the speaker’s sanity spirals away from her. The stanza finishes on a
dash (-). In the last stanza, “Reason” breaks and the speaker plunges “down and
down” into—well, it’s unclear, which is part of the point! The image of falling that
dominates this stanza shows how the speaker’s mind has finally lost all control.
Finally, the speaker is “Finished knowing.” The “then -” that ends the poem represents
an ultimate unknowability: the speaker can’t even say what comes next. The rational
mind, in effect, has shut down. Ultimately, the poem evokes a sense of wonder and
terror as it traces out a path that leads to inner destruction and, finally, a total absence
of rational awareness altogether.
'I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN': LITERARY DEVICES

 Mourners: As the poem is set at a funeral, Dickinson uses the imagery of the
mourners throughout the piece. These figures usually represent sadness.
However, here, the mourners are faceless beings that seem to torment the
speaker. Their ‘treading – treading’ in ‘Boots of Lead’, creates the imagery of
heaviness that weighs down the speaker as she loses her senses.
 Coffins: Dickinson also uses the imagery of a coffin to show the speaker’s
mental state. In the poem, the coffin is referred to as a ‘Box’, which the
mourners carry across her soul during the funeral procession. The poem never
states what is in the coffin. It represents the isolation and confusion the speaker
is experiencing as everyone at the funeral knows what is inside, except her (and
the reader).
I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN’: MEANING

 This poem is about how the speaker imagines losing her sense of self and
sanity. Here, the' Funeral' is not for her physical body but instead for her
mind. As the dashes in the poem increase, so does the speaker's fear and
confusion surrounding what she is experiencing. This is compounded by
the 'treading' around her, creating an annoying beat throughout the poem.
 The speaker also describes the chaotic moments before she ‘Finished
knowing’. However, the poem ends with a dash (-), showing that this new
existence will not end. Dickinson uses these devices to convey the
meaning of the poem, as they show how each of the speaker's senses
slowly falls away as her sanity dies.
 ‘I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN’: SUMMARY

 Let us examine the summary of ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’.

 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.
 I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN’: SUMMARY

 The mourners finally take their seats for the funeral service. Yet this service doesn't
contain any words. Instead, the speaker can only make out a repetitive, drum-like
noise. This noise overwhelms this speaker, causing the speaker's mind to go blank, as if
numb.
 Now the service ends and the funeral procession begins. The mourners lift a coffin and
carry it as they walk across the speaker's soul, which creaks like an old wooden
floor. Everyone in the funeral procession wears heavy boots made out of lead, which is
why their walking once again puts such a strain on the speaker's mind. Suddenly, there's
the sound of a bell ringing, but rather than coming from a single source it seems to be
coming from the whole world at once.
 Even the sky (and possibly Heaven itself) rings like a bell. The speaker says that people
exist only to listen to the world's ringing. The speaker—whose mind has been reduced to
a numb silence—feels as though he or she is no longer human but instead has become
some strange creature. The speaker is alone in his or her own body and mind..
‘I FELT A FUNERAL, IN MY BRAIN’: THEMES

 Death: ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ is a poem that explores the imagined process of dying in
real-time. The theme of death is clear throughout this poem, as Dickinson uses imagery associated
with death. The death that the speaker is experiencing is physical but also mental.
 Madness: Madness is key throughout the poem as the speaker slowly experiences the death of her
mind. The ‘funeral’ at the poem's centre is for her sanity. The speaker’s mental ‘Sense’ is slowly
being worn down throughout the poem by the ‘Mourners’. As the speaker's mind slowly dies,
dashes are seen more frequently throughout the poem, as this reflects how her sanity is becoming
more broken and disjointed during the funeral. This theme climaxes at the end of the poem when
the ‘Plank in Reason’ breaks, and the speaker finds herself falling until she finishes knowing’. At
this point in the poem, the speaker has fully lost her sanity, as she has lost her ability to reason or
know things. The mind was crucial for American Romanticism, which stressed the importance of
individual experience. This idea was adopted by Emily Dickinson, who focused this poem on the
importance of the mind and how losing one's sanity can deeply negatively impact one.
THE NATURE OF DESPAIR

 Throughout the poem the speaker references mourning, numbness, and a loss of control. Using those characterizations as
guideposts, readers can think of the poem as offering an idiosyncratic depiction of despair. The speaker presents no
explanation or solution. Instead, the poem tracks despair from its onset to the darkest abyss of isolation.
 The central metaphor of a funeral in the brain establishes the speaker’s state of mind. The first two lines clue readers in:
the speaker’s brain contains a “Funeral” and “Mourners.” Something has died within the speaker, and the speaker’s mind
mourns that loss. Rather than give a specific cause for this feeling, however, the speaker lets it remain ambiguous.
Despair becomes a mysterious phenomenon without a clear cause.
 The proceedings then continue for three stanzas, as the mourners sit for a service and carry a “Box,” (i.e. a coffin) through
the speaker. This suggests that despair can feel like a funeral procession for an unknown person. It creates a feeling of
anonymity and confusion. Additionally, by taking up three stanzas, the funeral depicts how despair can seem unending,
always finding new ways to make one’s life bleaker.
 The poem also evokes despair through physical metaphors. The funeral’s drum-like “beating - beating -” along with the
mourner’s heavy “treading - treading -” affect the mind as if striking it. They cause the mind to go “numb.” Just as
repeated pounding can cause skin to lose sensation, so here the speaker’s inner bleakness prevents the mind from thinking
or feeling. Next the mourners’ feet become “Boots of Lead.” The speaker feels an increased heaviness inside. Because of
this heaviness, the soul can only “creak” mournfully.
THE NATURE OF DESPAIR
 Finally, all this beating and heaviness causes something to snap in the final stanza (“then a plank in
Reason, broke”). The speaker loses hold of certainty and falls completely into an abyss (“And I dropped
down, and down”). Again, the speaker’s mind gets repeatedly “hit,” this time by the multitude of
“World[s]” that populate the universe, until reaching a final numbness.
 That physicality is compounded with a sense of loneliness, of being trapped within the mind. This
loneliness stems from a dawning awareness of the enormity of the universe. Readers see this most clearly
in the fourth stanza, when the speaker is “Wrecked, solitary, here.” “Here” can be seen as representing the
inescapable isolation of the self, how each person is trapped within the “here” of their own minds. The
immensity of the universe—whose “Heavens” blare loudly like bells and whose plunging depths contain
an unending series of alternate “Worlds”—dwarfs the speaker. By the end of the poem, even the
mysterious “Mourners” have disappeared, leaving the speaker to fall down into this abyss totally alone.
 Thus after depicting a kind of inner mourning, the poem comes to represent despair as a force that beats
the mind to numbness, heightens the effects of loneliness, and finally throws the speaker down a pit of
isolation.