“My mind
was going numb” How does Dickinson show her surrender in this poem?
Without
reserve, most of the Dickinson’s poems are immersed with an atmosphere of
forlornness whereby the speaker undergoes the experience of “first chill, then
stupor, then the letting go”. From the profound depression in which the speaker
feels “numb” in “I felt a Funeral in my brain” to the feeling of vulnerability
whereby her “life were shaven and fitted to a frame”, Dickinson exhibits a
continual desire of escapement from life; nevertheless, in the end, she
realizes that there is nothing to do other than being compelled to surrender to
her fate. The senses of submission to
the hell are recurring motifs within “It
was not death, for I stood up”, “After great pain a formal feeling comes” and
“There’s a certain slant of light.” However, it is in “I felt a Funeral, in my Brian” where the collapse
and breakdown of her being are prominently infused within the poem, it is the depiction of an essentially
paradoxical state of mind in which one is alive but yet “numb” to life.
Were the
beginning of the poem “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” to be considered as a
link to all of the other poems for her to present the ceaseless fear, despair
and disability, assuredly its inclusion of the strike imageries and sensory
details would be even more conspicuous as they constitute to the emphasis of
the despondent aura. The idea of having a “funeral in (my) brain” insinuates
the fact that the speaker is not only disabled in a physical state, but also
her inner mind is bombarded by the
“treading” and the “ beating”, caused by the “boot of lead”. Throughout
this poem, Dickinson has been illustrated as poultry that is waiting to be slaughtered
- she has chosen to surrender to the reality and wait for the judgment for her,
as if even death is an extravagant desire for her. Moreover, the speaker
demonstrates the fear of her life being invaded by the “mourners”, the
formality of words such as “funeral” and “service” suggest the idea that even
upon death, her life is under scrutiny. The continual agony has compelled her to alienate herself from the
society and being reluctant to express any emotion as a result, yet, her
self-defence is being “wrecked” by the “senses breaking through”. The act of “lifting a box” and “creaking
across her soul” by the mourners establish a sense of entrapment that the
speaker is unable to fight against with; compatibly, such suffocation is
presented in “it was not death, for I stood up”, whereby the speaker “ were fitted
to a frame and cannot breathe without a key”. The sense of hopelessness hammers
home the fact that Dickinson has surrendered herself to all the negativity that
appears in her life.
Like most of the poems, Dickinson has employed the use of iambic tetrameter
and trimetre as a structure – the regularity of this rhythm depicts the
perpetual torment as a rigid wall that which is unbreakable. The shortened
trimetre epitomizes the sheer intensity of pain and signifies the intangible
qualities her psyche has been deprived of. In considering the quatrains, we
behold the regularity of the poem to simulate the structure of hymns, suggesting
that the pain is ceaseless and that it is something that the writer cannot
break through, in their judicious employment. The use of pararhyme such as “fro”
and “through” highlights the lack of harmony and discordance, which is derived
from the disjointed life of the poet and thereby the construction of a solid
rhyme is not possible for her. Within
“It was not death, for I stood up”, the use of pararhyme as “down”, “noon”
epitomises the disharmony in the world that which she is entrapped within,
whereas “seen” and “mine” serve as a pair of regular rhyme insinuating that the
solidity of rhyme is to be attained once the poet is undergoing the symbolic
joy of “Death”. The prolonged stanza in the middle evinces a sense of ponderosity
that is provoked by the burden of “stone” acting upon the line; the elongation
in this stanza denotes the poet’s sombre mentality invigorating the faltering
of speech. The dissolution of her mind in itself has incurred her loss of
rationality, consequently proceeding to cause the inability to form rhyming
patterns of distinguishable consistencies. Were the emergence of enjambement to
be regarded representative of her impairment, the hyphens would be symbols
demonstrative of her attempts to resist the intrusion of others into her fort.
It could also be argued that the hyphen refrains the establishment of solidity,
as recognized in “After great pain, a formal feeling comes!” the disposition of hyphenation also
symbolises the stuttering tone of speech and the entrapment of sensibility so
as to evade from further affliction.
The fear of sound
disclosed, ‘the treading’ of the ‘mourners’, establish the cacophony that
continuously disrupt her and induce a sense of discomfort. The paranoid feeling
of being observed without cessation, generates an overall aura with the feeling
of lingering insecurity. Although the poem opens with ‘felt a funeral’, there
is no evidence of feelings on behalf of the ‘mourners’. There is no eulogy,
mourning or discussion for the person who was lost – the speaker. This
illustration is one of total isolation of the speaker, a distance from the real
world and more importantly distant from the feelings associated with those
around her. The view of the audience has been magnified to such severity that
even the positive things create noise that attack her. ‘Space’ was originally
considered as a symbol of silent emptiness, which the speaker usually deems to
be a secure place for her to remain. Yet in here, even the ‘space - began to
toll’ and so as the ‘heavens’ – all this cacophonous noise overwhelmed her to
such a degree that she could not bear but choose to desensitise and dehumanise
herself to become an ‘ear’. As reiterated in the title ‘She felt a funeral in
her Brain’, the use of deification of ‘Brain’, insinuate the fact her ‘Brain’
and ‘Funeral’ are equally important and tie to each other. In the following
line, the ‘Mourners’ are being awarded with equal importance with the adoption
of deification again, implying that these people have contributed to the
‘death’ of her ‘Brain’ in the unrelenting assault on her through the use of
repetition – ‘treading, treading’, ‘beating, beating’. In contrast to this
poem, ‘There’s a certain slant of light’, it is the synaesthetic use of ‘light’
that is the source of her pain. She regards the ‘light’ and ‘despair’ as
punishment from God ‘seal(ing)’ off the lid of hope and entrapping her within
the world. Should people behold the feeling of ‘despair’, one should firstly
perceive the existence of hope. Nevertheless, the lack of hope and entrapment
had obliged her to surrender, and ‘without a chance’, submit herself to the
most devilish place – the bottomless pit of her own shadow.
After all, the
speaker was led to nowhere, but ‘wrecked, solitary, here’ to justify ‘despair’.
