I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson | Structure, Summary, Analysis

Hello and welcome to the Discourse. Emily Dickinson is one of the most famous American Poets of the 19th century. Dickinson's poems have a distinct use of structure and dashes that has caused her work to be recognizable. During the period from 1860 to 1880, many of her close friends and relations would die of tuberculosis. These deaths greatly affected Emily, and the presence of the Theme of death was increasingly seen in her poetry. Her most creative years are considered to be from 1861-1865 during which she wrote most of her poetry. She wrote I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain in 1861 and was published posthumously in 1890.

Structure of I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain:

The poem consists of 20 lines written in five stanzas or quatrains. The rhyming scheme is ABCB. However, some of these are slant rhymes (similar words that do not rhyme identically). For example, ‘fro’ in the second line and ‘through’ in the fourth line are slant rhymes. The poem is written in Ballad form. The poet used iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter alternatively.

Enjambment has been profusely along with dashes and caesuras, and irregular Capitalization of words that offers an irregular structure to the poem. The poetess also employed imagery and symbolism. The funeral can be considered as an allegory while the imagery of mourners as faceless beings that seem to torment the speaker offers an eerie experience. The poetess used the imagery of the coffin by the term ‘Box’ to indicate the deteriorating mental state of the speaker. The funeral is a metaphor for the speaker’s loss of self and sanity. In line 11, the speaker mentions ‘Boots of Lead’ which is a symbol of how much the “treading” of the mourners weighs on the speaker’s “mind”, and how torturous it is for the speaker.

Themes of I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain:

The poem begins with a seemingly paradoxical statement, ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,’ which suggests that the speaker isn’t talking about her death or her funeral, rather, she is talking about the death or depreciation of her rational faculties. The poem traces the speaker's descent into madness. The speaker depicts the terror and helplessness of a person who is gradually losing her grip on reality. The speaker appears passive and confused and the steps of ‘Mourners’ seem to wear down whatever is holding “Sense” back. The speaker depicts her mind as a two-floor structure. The speaker only has partial access to this structure, listening from below to the funeral on the second floor. The mourners are a metaphor to express her pain. Their treading (note the repetition of the word, which gives emphasis and suggests the action) indicates a pressure that is pushing her down. The speaker has a momentary impression that reason ("sense") is escaping or being lost. The pressure of the treading is reasserted with the repetition, "beating, beating." This time her mind, the source of reasoning, goes "numb," a further deterioration in her condition.

Another theme of the poem is Death and the poem can be interpreted as the speaker is describing her own demise and funeral that she cannot see, but can feel because though she is dead, her soul is still not far away from her body, which is in the Box.

Summary of I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain:

Stanza 1 Lines 1-4

“I felt a Funeral in my Brain,
And Mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through.”

The speaker is conscious of her surroundings. She hears all that is going on around her, and she feels it, but she cannot see it. The opening line is striking because while most of us have seen a funeral process some time, we hardly know how to feel a funeral. One may compare with the sense of grief and sorrow, but the poem proceeds in other territory and the reader realizes that it is not some common funeral. The speaker could feel the movement of mourners and she describes the treading of the mourners. The poet capitalized ‘mourners’ because it is a metaphor to express the pain that is overwhelming her, torturing her to the extent that she is losing her sense, her rational faculty. ‘Sense’ is again capitalized.

Stanza 2 Lines 5-8

“And when they all were seated,
A Service like a Drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My Mind was going Numb.”

The mourners finally settled in her mind. They were all seated and hence, the torturous treading sound stopped. However, it was not the end of her torture. The mourners, representing her pains, her suffering, and her ill memories are deep-seated in her consciousness now. She hears the drum roll in her mind. ‘Drum’ is capitalized as the poet personified as a harbinger of a bad omen, the one bringing the bad news. The treading stopped but the painful Mourners were deep-seated in her mind and that created the painful sounds of a Drum that kept beating until the speaker felt as if she would lose her consciousness, her mind would go Numb.

Stanza 3 Lines 9-12

“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”

The speaker's mind is like a two-story building and she is on the lower floor. Her sense of hearing and ability to feel is still strong and though she cannot see what’s happening in the upper floor, she can hear it and feel it. She hears the sound of the box being lifted. Box is capitalized again because it is used as a metaphor for a coffin. A part of the speaker’s mind is dead and it is in that box. She can’t see it, but she can feel its demise, its loss, its funeral. As she hears it, she feels a creek in her Soul, something has broken down and lost forever.

One may also interpret here that the speaker is talking about her own funeral and that is why she cannot see it, but she can feel it. As the mourners, whom she cannot ‘see’, lift the Box and take it to the burying ground, she begins to hear the torturous sound of “Boots of Lead.” It is a metaphor for the pain and sense of loss of the speaker. The space begins to toll, and the speaker feels as if moving through the space. She hears the sound of the boots of the mourners who are lifting and moving her away.

Stanza 4 Lines 13-16

“As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being but an Ear,
And I and Silence some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here.”

The speaker is now more aware of her situation. She mentions the Heavens and feels as if the heavens were ringing bells for her. She feels she is no longer a being but just an ear (Ear is capitalized). She could hear and feel, but she couldn’t make any sound, she and silence are some strange race (Race is capitalized) suggesting that she is no more a human being, but some strange being. Either she has lost her rational faculties to express herself and has gone mad, thus it is the death of her sanity, or the poet means her own death, and now when she is dead, she is no more a human but some strange race. Either way, she knows she is destroyed and lonely here.

Stanza 5 Lines 17-20

“And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down and down--
And hit a World at every plunge,
And Finished knowing--then--”

In the last stanza, the speaker is pretty clear about what happened to her. She realizes that either she is dead, or she has lost her sanity and it is the death of her rational faculty, and she has drowned into the madness where she cannot say what is real and what is not. The death that the speaker is experiencing is physical but also mental. The speaker is witnessing the death of her sanity, stating that am‘Plank in Reason, broke-’. The “Plank,” or piece of wood broke as her coffin was lowered into the earth. The word “Reason” is capitalized because it is personified as the one who finally broke through to the speaker, causing her to become fully aware of what was happening to her. As she lowers down, she hits ‘a World at every plunge.’ World is capitalized as it represents her various feelings and experiences, she felt confusion, panic, wonder, and maybe even acceptance. One by one, she kept losing all her feelings and sensibilities and then she finished knowing anything, she was dead, or totally mad. The poem ends with a dash (-), showing that this new existence will not end, it is the solitary afterlife.

So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!