I Felt a Funeral in My Brain - Essay Plan

‘I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain’

‘My mind was going numb’.  How does Dickinson show her surrender in this poem?

Introduction

-          ‘First- Chill- then Stupor- then the letting go –‘ in After great pain, a formal feeling comes as she suggests her giving up in the fight for freedom

-          ‘I could not see to see –‘ in I heard a Fly buzz – when I died where she is blocked from Heaven by the ‘Fly’

-          ‘Despair’ in It was not death, for I stood up that shows the image of her drifting away from hope

Central Symbol

-          She uses noises to symbolise her pain and despair

-          First stanza: the repetition of ‘threading – threading’

-          Creates the image of being walked over by ‘Mourners’, suggesting that she cannot even get peace in her very own ‘funeral’ as ait seems like the visitors are violating her space

-          The two words adds weights to the rhythm, making the line sound rather burdensome, as if the speaker is being oppressed by the people who come to visit her

-          This assonance is echoed in the 2^nd stanza with the repetition of ‘beating-beating’

-          It resembles the synesthetic quality given by the ‘drum’ – sound and touch

-          The ‘Drum’ hasn’t helped in making the service more pleasant but instead, it enhances the constant sense of agony, allowing the speaker to express the headache, the physical pain caused by the audience

-          The pain is so disturbing that she is slowly giving up

-          She later zooms out the magnitude of her surrender from the ‘Funeral, in [her] Brain’ into ‘Heavens’.  The metaphor of ‘Heavens’ as ‘a Bell’ further more indicates that noises are destroying her and she cannot find a way to stand up from it. 

-          ‘Heavens’ which is supposed to be a place of glory and joy but it is described as something that contributes to the depression of the speaker

-          This is the evidence of her surrender as she thinks that even Heaven and God cannot save her from her despair – she is not have faith and has completely surrendered to sadness

Similarly this is also seen in There’s a certain Slant of Light where the ‘Cathedral Tunes’ are ‘[oppressing]’ the speaker, showing the fact that the speaker is surrendered by sadness.  She cannot find any escape other than ‘Death’

Structure

-          The use of hyphens indicates the state of surrender

-          ‘My mind was going numb – ‘

-          Perhaps, it is included to stop the solidity of her thoughts inside the ‘Box’ – her coffin

-          It is used to pause the poem, giving herself a break to get her thoughts together

-          They also demonstrate a sense of hopelessness, that she is slowly loosing energy to fight

-          The hyphen prolongs the imagery of lack of senses after the adjective ‘numb’.  It gives an onomatopoeic quality to the sadness that is eating her up and emphasis her incapability to fight the problem

This can be compared to the use of hyphens in What mystery pervades a well to show reflective pauses and to give her time to calm down and think: ‘That water lives so far –‘

-          Like the other works of Dickinson, the poem should have a rhyme of ABCB

-          Originally, a full rhyme scheme can be a symbol of stableness, that the speaker feels content or safe from the danger

-          But, instead of following the regular rhyming pattern,

-          Pararhymes are also found in this poem

-          In the first stanza: ‘fro’ and ‘through’ are indication of how her world is falling apart.  Because of the fact that she has surrendered, the harmony of the poem is disjointed – rhymes are incomplete, like her ’funeral’ that is disturbed by visitors

-          The last stanza, in particular, has no rhyme: ‘down’ and ‘then’

-          This could be a suggestive of her final surrender. 

Likewise, the pararhyme of ‘spar’ and ‘despair’ in It was not death, for I stood up is also implying that a happy ending is not possible. 

Technique

-          The speaker also expresses her surrender through the description of passivity in the poem

-          She suggests that she’s not comfortable with people walking ‘to and fro’.  She has not search for pain but remains in the ‘Box’ until the floor ‘[breaks]’

-          Establishing her lack of power to escape from the suffering

-          The speaker refers herself to an ‘Ear’ – perhaps implying that it is the entrance of all the suffering

-          She hears the overwhelming noise from ‘those same Boots of Lead, again’ through the ‘Ear’.  

-          ‘same’ and ‘again’ may be imply that she has experienced this before

-          It is a continuous pain that attaches to her

-          Dickinson is keen to create a synesthetic quality to the poem: a mixture of sound and touch

-          Emphasising the severity of her pain: it is too much to be explained just by normal terms

-          The word ‘wrecked’ resembles a destroyed ship.  Perhaps the speaker is comparing herself to that:  utterly broken and hopeless. 

-          The fact that she is ‘dropped’ and ‘finished knowing’ implies she is stuck in the sufferings that she has given up to escape from

-          Conveying her surrender

Contrasting to this poem, the speaker in Because I could not stop for death treats the matter of passing away positively.  She regards ‘Death’ as a gentleman that takes her away from suffering – ‘labour’ and ‘leisure’. In this poem rather than surrender  to death, she thinks about death completely at ease.