Traditional Ideas In Dickinson’s “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain””

Traditional Ideas In Dickinson’s “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain””

I Felt a Funeral In My Brain by Emily Dickinson is a poem where, throughout, the narrator is slipping into the madness of depression and suffering. Emily Dickinson is known for her sad, scary, and overall depressing poems, not just I felt a Funeral, in my Brain. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain though dark is one of Dickinson’s most famous poems (George Monteiro). The “Funeral” is a metaphor, is understanding that it is not a funeral itself but going through many dark emotions and places in your life you feel lost, somewhere where you feel alone, hopeless and even.

Emily Dickinson, in her poem, I felt a Funeral In My Brain continues the unique writing style, where she incorporates both the scientific and the beauty of nature within her body of work. Her ability to bring out emotion through the combination of both science and nature creates a beauty unique only to her. In the poem, I Felt a Funeral In My Brain, Emily Dickinson employes her methodology to create an impactful display of imagery and description to paint a physical representation of depression.

In the poem, I Felt a Funeral In My Brain, Emily Dickinson uses a descriptive and open style of writing to tell her story. The structure the poet, Emily Dickinson, chooses for the poem alternates between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with an abcb rhyme pattern. The structure style, iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter mean that the poem alternates between four and three iambic feet to be precise, giving the poem an allure of a simple feel while letting the meaning go deeper and beyond the apparent simplicity. The effect of Emily’s writing style is such that it pleasures both the light and the deep reader, as both get to satisfy their intellectual thirst, through the seeming simplicity and the underlying deeper meanings from the poem. The simplistic representation of the poem also serves to bring its complicated subject to clear relatable imagery while at the same time, serves to shed light on the subject of mental illness. It also provides a deep level of realism, allowing the reader to understand depression from a simple and easy standpoint as compared to the more abstract definitions common in medical journals.

In the poem I Felt a Funeral In My Brain, Emily Dickinson is speaking on a funeral procession; however, the exact occurrence of the procession is in contention, as the reader is not sure whether it is happening inside her head or it is an occurrence inside the character in the poem. She uses imagery and symbolism in the poem, where she speaks of the mind of being a house. The funeral procession in the poem, I Felt a Funeral In My Brain, progresses through the Brain, characterised by a house whereas the procession continues, there is creaking and breaking of doors. The imagery she uses here seems to allude to a type of unwanted force or powerful presence where it strains the house, she is speaking of, to the point of forceful entry, where it breaks the doors. However, the nature of the force is unknown, as there is little information as to what the force is, but seems to be an uncontrollable force, same as to the feeling depression comes with, which leaves the person feeling utterly helpless to the situation. The processions mourners as shown in the poem either represent the mental diversities that may exist in her mind, the constant and myriad of voices which interrupts the thought process with different solutions, or they may represent the characters friends and family who are there for the sad times. In their way, each tries to influence the physical outcomes in the characters life.

The funeral happening inside the character’s Brain are a symptom of depression based on the symbolism she alludes to and the apparent lack of control over the occurrences happening with the funeral procession. The tone of the poem also alludes to a certain level of helplessness, as the writing style is passive, echoing a certain level of powerlessness, or a lack of control of the events taking place. The location of the events, inside the characters Brain, lack a real-life location, as the Brain here alludes to a house, leaving the reader with questions as to the exact location of the events and the time in which the events take place, echoing a certain level of disinterest and vagueness shown by the character, a disconnect associated with depression.

Depression is characterised by a high level of mental disconnect, helplessness, and a lack of will to influence one’s outcome, which has a feeling of dying while still alive. The mourners characterised in the poem seem to have a level of control over the house, as compared to the poems main character. The procession seems to show stronger influences in the main characters life, whom according to the poem, have come to bury her (Hodgson). Whether the funeral procession is the direct or indirect cause of her depression is not clear; however, the reader is aware of the funeral procession’s impact on her depression, which is negative, out of her description of the funeral procession being destructive as the main character talks of the funeral procession breaking doors, and being the reason she gets to her last plank.

The poem I Felt a Funeral In My Brain was written in a different era compared to the 21st century (Monteiro, 656). The norms involved were a more subversive reality for women couped with chores, and a social structure strenuous to the life of Emily Dickinson, a known introvert with a reclusive nature. She was believed to have had physical health problems on occasion out of the social structure of the time, and the constant socialisation that was characterised by the era. Visits were often, which required counter visits or else it would be deemed insulting. It may be that the mourners whom she seems to have no personal affiliation or affection to; based on her characterisation of them as mourners without specifics as friends or family, may have been the same people she was constantly forced to visit, serve and cater for (Monteiro, 656). Mental health at the time was largely ignored and treated as a dismissive way to react to people who nobody or few agreed with. The ignorance around mental issues may have played a part in excavating her conditions, leaving her with only the poetic outlet to share her troubles. Perhaps it is these mourners in her house, whom she mourns as the cause of her depression, as they come in forcefully mourning her lack of social normalcy.

The poem I Felt a Funeral In My Brain utilises a lot of symbolism in the wording Emily Dickinson chooses to capture her emotions and thoughts. She repeats the words’ treading, ‘service like a drum’ and ‘beating’ which seem to insist on the condition of the poet. The repetitive words give the reader a feeling of hurt and lack of peace for the speaker, and perhaps more practically, they can be used to show pain inside the characters head. The poet also alludes to a constant marching which eventually causes a ‘plank to break’. The phrase may be alluding to the final break in the characters will, or the last straw in all her defences, showing the final giving up by the main character in the poem, due to the persistent intrusion by unwanted people whom she cannot control or prevent from coming.

Capitalisation is also a major part of Emily Dickinson’s poem Such words as death, funeral, heaven and mourners allude to the funeral. The box mentioned in stanza three may be alluding to a coffin, continuing the imagery of death or may also be an indication of the speakers’ isolation. Although she may have chosen isolation to an un-understanding society, the imagery shows how truly alone she was and felt. Drum, bell silence all allude to sound, which may mean the increased noise in her life, which left her ears ringing or the lack os sensible sound to her plight.

The last parts of the poem show the use of ‘and’ increasingly, which may be alluding to the increased factors which lead her spiralling down and down at every juncture, and an increase in the factors that negatively impact her. The last stanza of the poem offers certain interpretations as to the outcome of the character in the poem. The ‘plank in reason’ breaking may allude to the final straw, the bleak end where the character gives up and falls into the unknown. ‘finished’ may be taken by the reader to mean her final death (Fred). However, the ‘plank in reason’ breaking can also be considered as the thing that kept the character away from understanding the logic and reasoning of the time, getting a distorted picture of reality which in turn led to her depression. The second interpretation shows the plank as the final aspect holding the character away from understanding, logic and sanity, which, when broken, gives her the powers of logic, sanity and understanding — allowing her to control herself again and normally participate within the societal structures.

Although sad and mournful, the poem ends with the poet offering a ray of hope depending on the way the reader interprets the last stanzas, with a certain implication to the future where the character gets her peaceful ending, a from the world she is so uncomfortable in.

References

Monteiro, George. “Traditional Ideas In Dickinson’s “I Felt A Funeral In My Brain””. Modern Language Notes, vol 75, no. 8, 1960, p. 656. JSTOR, doi:10.2307/3039906.

The Sewanee Review. T. Hodgson, 1892.

White, Fred D. Approaching Emily Dickinson: Critical Currents And Crosscurrents Since 1960 (Studies In American Literature And Culture. Literary Criticism In Perspective). Boydell And Brewer Limited.