I Felt a Funeral in My Brain

     "I Felt a Funeral in My Brain" by Emily Dickinson is

an interesting complex statement on ther relationship

between the body and the soul during a time of mental

anguish.  The poet uses imagery to evoke the mind in a

state of mental shock.

     This is a five stanza poem on the nature of mental

anguish.  The poet conveys a sense of the mental pain which

is torturing her by speaking of the pain as if it were a

funeral being carried on in her mind.  In the first stanza,

the poet states that she "felt a funeral" in her mind.  She

focuses particularly on the heavy and constant tread of the

mourners' feet, and says that it seemed as though the sense

were breaking into the world ordinarily reserved for the

mind.

     In stanza two, the poet continues the figure of the

funeral.  Now, with the mourners seated and the service

beginning, a drumming noise associated with the service

numbs her mind.  The image of the seated mourners suggest

that some order has been restored.  However, the mind is

again under attack, and the beating drum symbolizes the

waves of feeling which numb the mind.

     In the third stanza, the poet states that she hears

the mourners lift the coffin.  Again, they move slowly

across her soul with feet which seem encased in lead. 

Am intensification of attack on the mind by bringing

together images of sound and weight is suggested.  She

hears the mourners as they lift the coffin and begin to

move, and she feels their feet which seem to be encased in

lead.

     In stanza four, the figure is continued in the sound

of a tolling bell.  The heaven seems to have become a great

bell which is ringin, and all creation responds as though

it were an ear.  In the last two lines, she introduces the

images of a shipwreck.  The poet personifies silence, and

says that it seemed as though she and silence had been

stranded together, thus consulting an unusual race.

     In the last stanza, the poet compares reason to a

plank of wood which breaks as a result of being

overstrained.  The image is continued with the poet

dropping away from this broken plank into a universe

filled with new worlds.  It suggests that the mental

anguish has become too much, and that the sense world had

won out and a complete mental bbreakdown had occurred. 

The image is that of the speaker falling through infinite

space.  It suggests that the order which the mind imposes

on reality has been disrupted, that the speaker is no

longer subject to the mind.