I felt a Funeral in My Brain - Example Essay #1

Discuss the ways Dickinson displays despair in ‘I felt a funeral in my Brain’ and elsewhere in her collection

Despair is important to the work of Dickinson. We see despair in the poem ‘Go to him, Happy letter’ where the letter will never reach its recipient and so the idea of possible love is ended. Despair is also seen in ‘It was not death, for I stood up’ where the speaker becomes confined and “fitted to a frame” which destroys and prevents all hope of dying. However the most clear depiction of despair in Dickinson’s work is seen in ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’. Here the speaker conveys the lost sense of direction towards heaven as they fall “down” into an unknown hell.

The central symbol in ‘I felt a Funeral, in my brain’ is the overwhelming sounds the speaker hears which bring pain upon her. The repetitive “treading” oppresses the speaker and leaves them isolated and alone as they confront the next stage of their lives after death; this is further explored as the speaker surrenders to her senses as she goes “numb” and stills herself loosing the fight to battle her way to heaven. The speaker has a breakage in their “Plank of Reason”, their mind, which reflects the ultimate loss of hope and overriding despair that causes the speaker to drop “down” into an unknown world of danger and darkness. Despair is a recurring theme throughout the poem and it could be seen that the “Silence” the speaker experiences is due to her senses giving in to the overwhelming sound which invades her “Ear”. However, the silence could also be foreshadowing of the end of the poem; the poem ends suddenly and “then” the speaker becomes lost to us. Despair is also seen in ‘I heard a Fly buzz’; the Fly “interposed” causing the speaker to be unable to reach the “King”, a representation of heaven. However, the Fly could represent the speaker who has lost all hope, and is searching without reason for some form of a positive future, and ultimately the speaker’s reflection of herself in the Fly causes her to go to hell.

‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ ends abruptly as the speaker drops into an unknown “World”. The use of the hyphen at the end of the poem emphasises their uncertainty and also awares the reader that the speaker was about to say something, however this is not revealed like the place the speaker has fallen victim to. The hyphen is important in conveying the never end sense of lost which the speaker feels for hope as despair becomes the strongest emotion felt. A hyphen is also used when the speaker’s “Sense” becomes damaged and she is attacked by her surroundings; similarly enjambment is used to convey damage. As the despair felt becomes stronger and makes all the speaker’s other emotions becomes absent, enjambment is used across the fourth and fifth stanzas to represent the pause and collection of thoughts of the speaker. In the poem ‘Go to him, Happy letter’ the speaker tries to confront their growing despair by writing in octanes rather than quatrains; the use of doubled stanzas illustrates the writer’s desire for a male companion and the hope she has for this aspiration, which despair does not structurally destroy.

Repetition is used in ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ to create the sense of a never ending pain and despair; this is particularly evident as the speaker falls “down” and “down” and the uncertainty of their destination becomes apparent. The repetition of silence also highlights the negative aspects the speaker is suffering and symbolises the defeat admitted by the speaker as they become hopeless and broken. This hopelessness is also seen in ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes’ where the pain goes “round”; it is never ending which controls the speaker’s last hope into overpowering despair. This recurrence of pain with no end is seen through the use of assonance; “treading” and “beating” are repeated and create a beat to the pain felt making it more evident to the speaker. The beat it causes can’t be ignored and leads to mental and physical pain, and ultimately leads to the admitted defeat as she becomes “Wrecked”.

Ultimately, despair is crucial to the work of Dickinson. ‘It was not death, for I stood up’ explores the despair felt by the reader as they accept the reality of entrapment “without a key”. However, ‘I felt a Funeral, in my Brain’ has the most evident use of despair as it runs throughout the poem giving the speaker no chance to remember or replenish their hope. The speaker ends the poem “Finished knowing” and suddenly finishes without telling the reader of this knowledge; however, despite this, it is the clearest depiction of the despair suffered as it leaves us completely without answers, like the feelings of the speaker.