How Does Emily Dickinson Try to Describe a Psychological State in Her Poem “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”

How does Emily Dickinson try to describe a mental bring up in her metrical composition I felt a Funeral in my intelligence? Emily Dickson was born in 1830, in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts. She grew up in a prominent and prosperous household in which she was raised as a cultured Christian woman. The sixteenth centaury was a precise historical period in America. During this era slavery had been abolished, women were campaigning for rights, gold was discovered and America was going by a depression. Transc block upentalism was i of the most important movements of the time.Rad as wellWe grow accustomed to the darkThe song I felt a Funeral in my straits appears to convey the look of a mind facing its own collapse. Funeral in my Brain is a metaphor for the death of the mind. Through pop the poem Dickinson expresses the idea of a breakdown which is some(prenominal) mental and somatogenic. The opening stanza presents the metaphor of a funeral that is used through with(p redicate)out the poem to convey the genius of a breakdown. Brainrefers to both the concrete physical organ and to the abstract idea of the verbalizer units mind much(prenominal) dual meanings ar used throughout the poem to convey the physical and mental effects of the breakdown.The noun Funeral refers to the speakers mental mind in which she feels standardised is slowly dying. The speaker is experiencing synaesthesia as well as ol incidention detached from her body and her thoughts, she is besides having difficulty organising her thoughts. Both Funeral and Brain have capital letters which strain the importance of their impact and the theme throughout the poem. Both words argon polar opposites as you wouldnt relate your learning ability which is the most powerful and most important organ to that of a funeral which is related to death, tribulation and sorrow.This in that respectfore implies that the speaker is experiencing a depression of the mind. The fact that the spe aker felt a funeral in her soul suggests that the funeral is psychological instead of a physical event. The speaker expresses her feelings instead of de bedating them. A funeral is also a ghostly event which is held in a place of worship. This illustrates the importance of religion during the 16th century and the impact it had on the lives of heap during that period.The second lineage of the stanza And Mourners to and fro is a metaphorical way of explaining her state of mind and expressing the pain in her mind it also suggests that the mourners could possibly be one of the evidences why the speaker is in a depression. To and fro substance to move back and forth the mourners w makeethorn be stuck in her head as she is thinking rough them, they ar not leaving her mind, they continue to switch her and disconnect her with her thoughts. Another interpretation could be that the mourners are nerve-wracking to tell her something or try and conduct her aware. Mourners refers to a convocation of people, this suggests that society may be against her and her beliefs they are not all(a)owing her to have a thought process but are trying to confuse her. A mourner is a individual or persons in this case who expresse grief and sorrow opus att full terminus a funeral which is in the speakers brain. In addition this links to the funeral in her brain it implies that she may have a headache from the mourners confusing her or by staying in her mind, they may be depressing her even more.The speaker creates imaginativeness by trying to express the funeral in her brain as a physical event instead of a psychological one. The speaker implies that she is actually att destroying a funeral, to her it seems real but to others it may suggest a sense of madness and loss of universe. In the tertiary and fourth line of the first stanza Dickson uses a metaphor to describe and create imagery of the speakers mind. kept treading-treading- money box it seemed that sense was break ing through she uses a verb treading to emphasis the effect of the mourners.The verb treading implies that the mourners are walking on, over or along her. They are trying to trample or crush her both physically and mentally. Treading is repeated through repetition to exaggerate what the mourners are doing to her. It indicates a pressure that is pushing her down. Treading is a harsh word, the fact that its repeated suggests that its ongoing they are not stopping. The mourners may be treading so that the speaker begins to interpret, they may be treading to bring out a sense of reality back in to her, they are trying to wake her up.This links to the idea of sleep paralysis she may be dreaming and not aware. Dickinson also uses alliteration to emphasis and enhances the word treading. That sense was breaking through this implies that the speaker is understanding what is going on , things are starting to make sense to her as the mourners were treading which sparked something in her brain to understand. On the other make at that place are many different things which could be breaking through to her.It may be that the mourners are pushing her to make sense or that she finally understood herself and her own sense and beliefs were sinking in. Her sense (or knowledge) of what is occurring begins breaking through to climax in some kind of understanding about her impending devastation. equivalent the word brain, which has two meanings, the word sense can also refer to the speakers physical senses, which are likewise affected by the mourners plaguing her mind. In addition I felt a cleaving in my mind compares to I felt a funeral in my brain in many ways.The poet has been in a depression and unhealthy mental state. In the first stanza she feels like her brain is splitting and she is trying to pile up herself but could not succeed. In comparison to the speaker in Dickinson poem that sense was breaking through She draw her condition in simple clear words such as cleaving , brain, seam by seam just like Dickinson has delineated the speakers condition in words that everyone can relate to and understand such as funeral, brain the poem is also similar to that of Dickinsons because the speakers both experience a depression of the mind. I felt a funeral in my brain and I felt a cleaving in my mind however the speaker feels a funeral in her brain and the other in her mind. Even though both are similar your brain is an organ whereas your mind is originated in your brain but is manifested in thought and emotion. On the other hand a psychological depression is possible in both your mind and brain. In the second stanza of Dickinsons I felt a funeral in my brain The mourners are all seated, representing a quiet moment, perhaps marking the end of the speakers initial holy terror or mental chaos.However, the respite is short-lived, and the Service, like a Drum begins a fresh assault on both her physical senses and mind. The sound of the bone up, like the tre ading of the mourners, is another attack on her sanity, an attack so ferocious that she feels her mind going numb. numbness is a physical sensation that stands as another example of the speakers struggle to convey her experience in understandable physical terms. A Service like a Drum is a metaphor giving reference to the normalcy of everyday life that people went on living tour she was falling apart and breaking down.This line implies that her funeral is more like a performance rather than a religious gathering as a drum is not the uncouth instrument which is played at a funeral or a service. A drum is however an optimistic and continuous musical instrument. This may suggest that her headache is still there. A service like a drum also conveys military imagery since the mourners are all seated, no one is standing and a drum is on beat. This implies the idea of conformity during the sixteenth centaury. It also uggests that her funeral service was like any other, it was normal, aught out of the ordinary occurred. This may also imply that the speaker feels tense as a drum makes a pressuring beat which is never ending. This refers to the first line And they all were seated. They conveys the idea that society was in concert and she was only if. This therefore gives reference to isolation. The speaker could have said we instead of they which portrays that the speaker was not part of their group and didnt conform.This implies that she had different views and beliefs to that of society which led to her macrocosm an outcast. Dickinson uses repetition when delineating the sound of the drum and her psychological state. Kept flogging- whipstitching-till I thought my mind was going numb This chips away at her mind until she cant endure anymore so it goes numb. The word thrashing is also used as a homonym, being used as the verb beating in that it is not only the sound of the beating of the drum, but the beating down of a person. The beating goes on until she can endure no more until 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 repetition of the verb beating emphasises the fact that the drum or in fact society wont stop pressurising her and continues to feed information to her even though she doesnt want to hear it. It also suggests that the service was very long as it kept beating beating .The speaker is affected by the beating of the drum as her mind goes numb which suggests that her condition is deteriorating and the drum beat is fading into her mind. The beliefs of Society are starting to sink in to her head. The words Drum and Numb rhyme in the stanza which correlates the difference between them and implies that the drum makes her mind go numb. This second stanza is simil ar to that of I felt a cleaving in my mind, as in this stanza she tried to follow her thoughts and the thoughts before however it was out of sequence.They were like balls on the floor slipping away, discrete, and incoherent and out of reach. This compares to that of her mind going numb because of the beating of the drum. In the third stanza of Dickinsons poem the speaker implies that the funeral has to come to an end as And then I heard them lift a box suggests that her casket is being carried out to be put into her grave. This creates imagery as it clears to delineate her physiological state. And creak across my soul the word soul refers to a eldritch and religious state of mind. Creak leads us to think that the soul must be made of wood.When the mourners raise the coffin they tore at her soul as if the death of her mind was still not the end. The fact that they creaked across her soul suggests that they wanted there to be nothing left of her, implying that all that they had a lready through with(p) to her was not the end, but there was more suffering left even though she thought it was over. Dickinson uses a metaphor creak across my soul to portray the speaker as suffering even at her funeral. If you creak it implies that you are hiding something as you walk carefully. This links to with those akin boats of lead, again.Lead is a very heavy metal so the fact that the mourners are wearing boots of lead at her funeral and creaking across her soul suggest how un thoughtful they are and how much hate they have towards her as if you creak across someone soul with boots of lead you intend to crush them. The speaker implies that she has seen those boots of lead before same and again implies that the person who is wearing the boots was the one who caused her the pain and suffering that she experienced and has now come back at her funeral wearing the boots to remind her of everything that happened like a flashback.The fact that the person creaked across her soul in boots of lead is peculiar as when you creak you walk slowly, trying not to get caught. But if you creak while wearing boots of lead which is a heavy metal its like you know what youre doing , the person may have wanted to slowly creak across her soul to remind of her of her past. The last line of the stanza Then space-began to toll implies that after they have walked across the speakers soul, Space begins to toll like a toll. church service bells often toll at the end of a service, so were in religious territory.She imagines that her mind or soul is like an entire universe containing a vast empty space. With their departure, the world around her peal out with sound, almost chaotically, with no sense or reason, as there is no longer a functioning mind to make sense of all the noise. The speaker begins to understand that this is really it for her. The fourth stanza continues the ending of the third stanza. All existence has been transformed to an ear, The anchor ring bell of h eaven both symbolizes church bells reverberance for the death of her sanity and the random noises and sounds f the world around her. She can no longer make sense of reality it exists completely in the forms of sensations, intense sounds, without a mind to bring order to it all. Although the poem is surreal throughout, it grows more and more surreal as it progresses echoing the loss of her sanity. While she is left alone with the silence inside her mind because at this point her mind is for the most part gone, with only a little bit left she no longer has racing thoughts because her brain has separated from the world. The Space from line 12 turns into the Heavens that ring like a bell.Dickinson has zoomed out from the funeral scene. Being is a generic term for existence. We say human beings, for example, to refer to human existence. If being is an ear, that makes us into passive receivers of the noise of the universe. We cant control what we hear. The tolling of the bell is a repeti tive sound that reminds us of the treadingtreading of the first stanza or the beatingbeating of the second. Dickinson refers to if all the sphere were a bell which suggests that the speaker thinks that heaven is calling out for her to come, ringing for her through the sound of a bell. And being but an ear implies that she can only hear but cannot respond, so the heavens are ringing for her and she can hear them only. The speaker may feel as if the church bells are ringing inside her head. This creates religious imagery as Heaven relates to religion. And I and silence, some strange race, wrecked cave man here the speaker suggests that all she has is silence and herself which implies that she feels isolated. She feels as if silence is her only companion and she feels united with silence.The speaker emphasises her isolation by describing herself and the other race as wrecked solitary, here telling us that there is no hope for her or others like her, that are broken or alone. The Sile nce 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 with the ear seem to rely on, it is something that they share from which she is excluded.The speaker thinks that she and Silence belong to the same Race, or type of individual. We dont know why Silence would be in a world fill up with the sound of a bell, but Silence is the negative side of sound. Both the speaker and Silence are passive and empty. In the last stanza it turns out she did have a little bit of reason left. The fat of reason breaks like rotting wood and she plonks deeper and deeper into insanity, allowing her toviewthe world multiple times through the eyeball of madness her insanity allows her to see multiple worlds, not visible to the san e.Dickinson twists our notions about insanity with her last line. further through madness can we truly know the world as it is. However, since youre mad there is no way you can communicate this knowledge to others, hence the ambiguity of the last line she knows all about the world, thanks to her madness she is able to see it from new perspectives, but since she is mad there is no way to communicate this information intelligibly to others who arent mad. And then a plank down in reason broke this implies that she may have fallen through the cracks of religion, standing on a plank that is rooting.This suggests the hypocracy understructure religion as religion is seen as pure and the answer to everything especially during the sixteenth centaury. This can also be interpreted as her logic or common sense disintegrated she lost touch with reality and her own sense of reason. Dickinson uses a metaphor to portray her loss with reality and then a plank in reason broke. And I dropped down, and down, And hit a world at every plunge She falls past worlds, which may stand for her past in any case, she is losing her connections to reality.Her descent is described as plunges, suggesting the speed and force of her fall into psychological chaos. She hit a world the speaker doesnt specifically say what world she hit but it does suggest her psychological state deteriorating. The word And is used at the beginning of every line in this final stanza, giving further rhythm to the descent. The fact that she hit a world at every plunge also suggests the speed and force of her fall into psychological chaos and the fact that her life flashes before her life. At the end of her fall, or at least the end of the poem, she Finished knowing. It makes sense for someone who has lost their power of reason or intelligence to not be able to know things anymore.The last word of the poem, then, does not finish or end her experience but leaves open the door for the nightmare-horror of madness. The meter of the poem is in the classical ballad meter stylus of Dickinson, and gives the poem a sombre tone. The ABDB rhyme scheme carries us through the poem until the use of fish rhyme wakes us up in the last stanza. The poem is structured with 4 lines for every stanza. The themes of the poem are in capitals in every line of every stanza. I, Funeral, Brain, Mourners, Kept, Sense etc. Dickinson uses many dashes and comas in this poem. In conclusion, Dickinson tries to describe a psychological state in her poem I felt a funeral in my Brian through the language she uses such as metaphors and the structure of her stanzas which include punctuation. The funeral in her brain symbolizesthe end of one state of conscious and way of thinking about the world to be replaced by a newer state of being which is impacted through the period of time and the way religion influenced her.