I heard a Fly Buzz - Essay Plan

‘I heard a Fly buzz – when I died’

Useful Link: http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/cs6/fly.html

Terror / Death / Entrapment / Hope and Hopelessness / Afterlife / Isolation  

Introduction

-          (Terror) ‘Corridors‘ in ‘The brain’ in One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted - conveys the horror inside a person – the hidden and scary places in a mind are more dangerous than ‘external ghosts’

-          (Entrapment) The last night that she lived where she expresses the pain of being trapped in the world that is ‘awful’ to her.  She sees being ‘dead’ as a way to escape from the pain

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

-          ‘The Fellow’ as a phallic symbol of danger in A narrow Fellow in the Grass

Central Symbol

-          ‘Fly’ is a common symbol for corruption or a demonic presence (like Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies)

-          The speaker juxtaposes two disparate elements

o   The trivial occurrence of hearing the ‘fly’

o   Death, an important of a person’s life:  ‘when I died’

-          The fly appears in her death, as a negative figure

-          It ‘interposes’ the silence in the scene: This creates a sense of bathos as the ‘buzz’ of a fly distracts the dying figure. 

-          It is perhaps that the fly becomes the central figure of the poem – much of the final stanza is dominated by the fly.  Rather than the rituals of death, attention is focused on the fly. 

-          Dickinson’s use of symbolism foregrounds the power of the fly and immediately foreshadows the doom in the poem – The Fly comes between ‘light’ and the speaker

-          It is possible that the light represents eternal life: The speaker who hopes to escape from the sufferings in her current life is blocked by the Fly in her final reach to the ‘King’ (reference to Christ of God)

-          This conveys the pain in entrapment: The speaker is trapped by the ‘buzz’ of a Fly, only a trivial problem

-          This is further emphasized in the final line where she ‘could not see to see’.

-          As physical sight recedes the speaker could be suggesting a failure of perception – the inability to see through to the glory of the next life

-          Hopeless -> cant go to heaven / trapped in present life

It was not death, for I stood up where she depicts the nearing of the end ‘when everything that ticked has stopped’ with the metaphor of ‘grisly frosts’.  She is afraid of the ending where she will be drifted away in a boat ‘without’ a ‘report of land’

Techniques

-          The poem is a typical hymn metre with pararhyme on lines 2 and 4 until the final stanza

-          The use of hymn structure perhaps alludes the poem to the criticism of religion

-          The speaker’s message to the ‘King’ who failed to save her from pain, the ‘storm’

-          The speaker conveys incompletely due to the fact that she is trapped between her life and heaven.  This idea is enhanced by the use of pararhymes like ‘Room’ and ‘Storm’.  This indicates the fear inside her to forbids her to construct normally. 

-          She is broken and damage inside and this is clearly reflected in her rhyme scheme.  We see her attempt to search for order in her stable quatrains; however, she has failed to do so as the constant use of parahyme still reflects chaos and distress. 

-          Yet, after constant half rhyme, a full rhyme of ‘me’ and ‘see’ is found in the last stanza, providing a strong sense of conclusion.  Has she found a solution? Perhaps not, the speaker suggests that ‘the Windows failed’ and she ‘could not see to see –‘.  This maybe the implication of the speaker’s surrender.  We sense no hope in the final line of the poem. 

Similar to What mystery pervades a well, a pararhyme of ‘glass’ and ‘face’ suggests Dickinson’s fear of the ‘abyss’s face’ and the invisible entrapment of the ‘lid’

Others: the idea of unfamiliarity

-          Only ‘eyes around’, not relatives, nor friends

-          This suggests her lack of connection towards her current life – she is isolated

-          This might emphasise her fears as she intensifies her want of a better life after her current one which she does not have any connection to

-          She implikes that the ‘eyes’ have ‘wrung dry’ when she died, conveying that she has no more emotion to the people around her. 

-          This idea is furthermore elaborated as she ‘[wills]’ her ‘keepsakes’ and claims them as ‘patrons’ of her, displaying her confused state of mine due to her fear – she oddly weights objects over human beings. 

-          This sense of unfamiliarity there shows her difficulty to survive in a world by herself with no one to depend on but her ‘keepsakes’.

Likewise, in Because I could not stop for Death where she has more attachment towards the figure of ‘Death’ than the people, the ‘children’, the fields of grazing grain’ and the ‘setting sun’ in the world.  This conveys her sense of unfamiliarity.  She suggests that ‘the day’, her last day of life is fearful and ‘centuries’ in her grave ‘fears shorter than the day’. 

There is a Certain Slant of Light - Example Essay #2

"Oppression, like the weight of cathedral tunes"

How does Dickinson show oppression in poem 258 and in her other work.

Without a doubt, oppression is one of the key symbols of Dickinson's poems. We see in a lot of her poems, as well as "There's a certain slant of light", her emphasis on entrapment; for example, "I heard a fly buzz" and "It was not death for I stood up" where she deliberately states "As if my life were shaven And fitted to a frame". Oppression is often shown through as being stuck in the state of nothingness after life, and sometimes Dickinson uses this theme to express female suppression, like in "What mystery pervades a well". In "There is a certain slant of light", oppression is depicted by "the weight"and the heavy "cathedral tunes" where the poems seems to be going downwards, and the protagonist never being able to escape; nonetheless,  the very word- "oppression" is used on the second line of the poem, which conveys it's importance.

It is common in Dickinson's poem to have a key symbol, and we can argue that oppression is the symbol in "There's a certain slant of light".We can see it from the first stanza where Dickinson seems to suggest that the light is oppressing her; "winter afternoon" depicts a picture where nothing is alive and nothing is new, as leafs fall and flowers wilt. As for afternoons, they could represent one's life, passing youth, waiting upon it's death. Similarly in "I heard a fly buzz", Dickinson also uses something, "a fly", as a symbol of oppression, trapping her, where the fly is "between the light-and me-". Perhaps, she is suggesting her feelings as being trapped in life, not being able to escape; there is a real sense of gravity shown by "the weight" and the "cathedral tune" which is often dragged out and tiresome. The overall message seems to be Dickinson's resentment of hope and joy, suggested by the connotation of Christianity from the "cathedral tune", where in God there is hope, and hope is the very thing that is dragging her down. It is possible that Dickinson felt as if the future holds to much burden, she is growing heavy just waiting to die; yet, "pain" and "despair" are the only things that are lifting her up, suggested by "'Tis the seal, despair, An imperial affliction Sent us of the air". As mentioned earlier, this poem is very closely linked to Christianity, and pain is said to bring us closer to God, which could be Dickinson's way of saying: pain is good; we can daringly say that Dickinson seems to rejoice at "pain" because it is the closest thing to death, where oppression no longer exists. Similarly in "Because I could not stop for death", death is portrait as a gentleman caller who brings her away from her mundane life, in which dying is positive, even romantic.

Dickinson has a similar structure for most of her poems; almost all share the same rhythm- Iambic tetrameter,trimeter. However, there is an irregular rhythm on the first stanza, where "trochee" is used to depict her fear, which is often seen as she panics. This could be interpreted as an attempt to escape oppression, as she tries to break away from the regular structure. The broken structure can also be seen in "A bird came down the walk" as she is frightened by the barbaric bird and tries to hide away. Hyphen is also a familiar feature in Dickinson's poem, in "There's a certain slant of light", the hyphen is put behind "'Tis the seal, despair" which ultimately acts as the "seal" in a physical form; very cleverly, Dickinson presents to us the ultimate oppression, so huge that even word can't describe, it has to appear in a solid form. In contrary, Hyphens seems to be used as bullets in "My life had stood-a loaded gun" where shooting a bullet correlates with the sense of release and freedom. 

Dickinson quite often uses linguistic devises to express her inner emotion. As mentioned, there is a sense of a downward force in this poem which is in someway contributed by the use of sibilance on the first line: "certain slant of life"; it opens the poem with a drowsy and unpleasant atmosphere, linking to Dickinson hatred towards the days of living, her uneasy feelings for the oppression of life. Sibilance is also used in "I felt a funeral in my brain", where the line "silence some strange race" creates a kind of sinister sentiment. Pathetic fallacy is used in "on winter afternoon", to depict a scene where a day is closing to an end and the observer going much closer to death; which reminds us of her feelings of entrapment in life, just waiting to die. The sense of fear is not only shown through the broken structure on the first stanza, it is also conveyed by Dickinson's use of '"synesthesia", with the combination of "weight" and "tune"; the way she mixes up different senses shows her anxiety and again emphasises the heaviness of life. Dickinson also uses oxymoron quite frequently, this technique can be seen in "After great pain a formal feeling come" and "The last night that she lived"; yet, the phrase " heavenly hurt" from "There's a certain slant of light" is, arguably, used in the most powerful way. We can almost relate to Dickinson's view, where "affliction" is "imperial"; to her, "hurt" is pleasurable, almost reassuring, because it is her only way to escape oppression, the only thing that"sent us of the air", and all good things are from God, all good things are "heavenly".

Oppression is a very general term where it can be interpreted in many different ways; In "There's a certain slant of light", Dickinson mainly focuses on entrapment, in which she expresses her impatient with the end of life. She uses unusual poetic structure to express fear and discontentment, her desperation to break free from life, hence breaking the rigid structure. Dickinson also uses a variety of linguistic techniques to strengthen her feelings. Oppression, without a question, is the key theme to the poem, "There is a certain slant of light. 

There is a Certain Slant of Light - Notes

THERE’S A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT

An interesting wepage: http://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/theres-certain-slant-of-light.html

THEME: ENTRAPMENT, ISOLATION, PAIN, FEAR

SYMBOL

-          “slant of light”

o   about realising something, realising the problem® being alive is the problem; she finds life impossible, once you see it, there is no way back, cannot be unseen ®end of the world

o   APOCALYPTIC

o   The slant of light acts as a focal point for the speaker’s meditation

o   change as a fearful but illuminating process, both painful and essential. Here this awe of change is embodied in the “certain Slant of light” that becomes the place of departure for the transformation.

-          “winter afternoon”

o   declining hours of daylight suggest a movement towards death or failure of vitality®pathetic fallacy

-          the shining light is too glorious for her desolate life ® cannot accept its optimism® the light hurts her 

-          “weight of cathedral tunes”

o   emphasis on the sense of being weighed down  as the usual pleasant associations of church music are undermined

o   sense of sight and hearing give way to the sense of touch in the powerful “Weight”, which embodies the great burden

o   sense of hearing: synaesthesia ® the “light”affects the sound : utterly trapped, sight and sounds being affected® all her senses are stripped away and destroyed

o   with them comes a heaviness that the speaker can't help but feel burdened by. They also inflict a kind of "Heavenly Hurt" that reveals the speaker's "internal difference" or conflict even more.

-          the light constitute to a feeling of “heavenly hurt”

o   the purposive syntax give prominence to the importance of the foregrounded phrase ® the hurt is emotional, spiritual and mental so there is “no scar” to be discovered

-          to define the feeling that the “light” gives

o   “seal despair” ® enigmatic

o   this metaphor conjures the slant of light as a wax imprint that closes down all alternative meanings of life.

o   syntax is elliptical ® not the seal of despair, but the seal and despair seem to be one and the same ® “seal”: powerful biblical overtones ® mark and ratification or sign of agreement between God and men

-          the light causes “no scar” but “infernal difference”

o   it directly causes her torment in soul ; burning inside her soul ® her inside/meaning is being changed® she doubts her existence and her life

-          the light is “sealing” her to suffer on this world, the oppression is ceaseless, and there’s no escapement, she is destined to be trapped within this

STRUCTURE

-          Iambic tetrameter and trimetre

o   Hymn- like pattern resonates with the “cathedral tunes” ® things that are originally positive and glorious becomes corrupted

§  Awkward sense to the metre ® suffocated by the light around her® causes the stanza to be disjointed

§  Suppose to be place to be calm, joy and to worship, but is now overwhelmed by sadness

§  Symbol of entrapment

-          Rhymes: "afternoon" and "tunes," "scar" and "are," and "despair" and "air."

FEATURES

-          “us”…” we”…

o   suggestive of this feeling is a common or universal human experience; not only confined to her, but to the whole human confition

-          then magnified to the “landscape”

o   it is now experienced by a personified nature ® becomes omnipresent

-          “shadow hold their breath”

o   projection of the feeling onto the landscape broadens its scope

o   final simile is ominously enigmatic® could represent indifference, an unwillingness to acknowledge the individual but it also suggests that something is beyond reach,  a condition of hopelessness where the sufferer can see no end to the suffering; passing of the feeling does not bring relief from it

-          use of pronoun- “it”

o   such fear towards the light that use the pronoun “ it” to represent it  ® as if mentioning the name is forbidden and will bring affliction

o   incapable on confronting the light® dare not to mention it, as if not addressing its name could deny its existence

-          “heavenly hurt”

o   alliteration, oxymoron ® she is scared of the entrapment and pain that it causes, but ironically, she enjoys it at the same time® as if the pain that she feels reminds that she is still living…?

o    the alliteration and capitalisation demonstrate the personal suffering which, although ironically leaving no visible scar, leads to a personal discovery of ‘Meanings’.

-          “shadows hold their breathe”

o   The immobilising personification of shadows on one hand gives them life but on the other, ironically takes away the means of sustaining it. The Slant of light stops movement. 

CONCLUSION

The “slant of light” is never meant to “seal” the “despair”, but a judicious symbol of the ominous “ death”. 

MAIN QUOTATIONS

-          “tis the seal, despair”

-          “landscape listens, shadows hold their breath”

-          “weigh of cathedral tunes”

-          “heavenly hurt; internal difference”

RHYMES

-          “light”, “weight”

-          “scar”, “are”

-          “despair, air”

-          “breath, death” 

There is a Certain Slant of Light - Example Essay #1

“Heavenly Hurt, it gives us –

            We can find no scar”

Discuss ways in which Dickinson conveys feelings of danger in ‘There’s a certain slant of light.’

Feelings of danger are important to the work of Dickinson. We see this in the poem ‘I heard a Fly buzz’ where the Fly interposes and prevents the speaker from escaping danger and reaching the “King”. Feelings of danger are also seen in the poem ‘A Narrow Fellow in the Grass’ where the fear of the snake, “fellow”, causes a separation between the body and the soul. However, it is in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ that we see the most clear depiction of feelings of danger in Dickinson’s work. The poem explores how the light is dangerous in the sense that it entraps the speaker causing lost hope and “despair”.

In Dickinson’s poem ‘There’s a certain slant of light’, the central symbol is the “light” which oppresses the speaker and brings fear upon them. The light is dangerous as it hurts the speaker leaving a “scar” of internal pain. However, though dangerous, the pain is seen as “Heavenly” as it enables the speaker to feel an emotion other than depression, and for her this is pleasant. The fear runs throughout the poem with the speaker addressing the light as “it”; this conveys and emphasises the fear of the light and the dangerous effects that it has upon her. The speaker addresses the suffering caused by the light as a human condition, in which “we” all suffer the consequences and the danger to come such as “death”. Suffering is also seen in ‘After great pain a formal feeling comes’, the headache becomes dangerous as the speaker emphasises that it “goes round”, the implications of the headache never stopping are deadly for the speaker, as ultimately it means a life of eternal pain. The headache also causes danger as it is “mechanical” and so all control is lost, meaning the speaker is unable to regulate the pain she feels.

The structure of Dickinson’s poems can also be seen to bring about danger as they cause entrapment and therefore prevent escape. In ‘What mystery pervades a well’, the regular iambic tetrametre and trimetre creates a “well” which traps the “water”, and therefore emphasises patriarchal society and the dangers associated with dominance. ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ emphasises the discomfort the light causes by comparing it to a “weight” which prevents freedom and escape. The “weight” makes the line heavy and brings an awkward sense to the metre representing the changing nature of the light as its danger becomes more apparent. Despite the comparison of the light’s pain to a weight, the weight is the only solid idea in the poem, with all others being very soft. Towards the end of the poem, entrapment is emphasised with the speaker being unable to open the “seal” and so is locked into “despair”, hyphen follows her discovery which could be seen to represent the lost hope and faith as her fears becomes a reality, and therefore is used as a trapping feature.

Pathetic fallacy is used in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ to represent the depression the speaker feels which emphasises the ‘end’ coming closer. The darkness of the “winter afternoons” could also be seen to foreshadow the dangerous light. Darkness as a motif for danger is also portrayed in ‘I heard a Fly buzz’, here the speaker “could not see to see” as they end up in the darkness of hell and now have no opportunity of escape; the speaker is now victim to a never-ending darkness. Synaesthesia is explored in ‘There’s a certain slant of light’, in which the speaker’s senses becomes mixed and damaged by the light; the “cathedral tunes” becomes negative and suffocate her. The tunes and the light destroy her hearing and sight, and they can now only be felt and cause physical and “internal” damage.

Ultimately, feelings of danger are crucial to Dickinson’s work. However, it is the entrapment that is brought upon the speaker that provides the strongest sense of danger as, as a result, there is no longer any escape. In ‘A Narrow Fellow in the Grass’, the speakers “feet” become detached as a result of their overriding fear, and so they are unable to move and become prey to the “fellow” trying to seek a female. In ‘There’s a certain slant of light’ we see the most effective use of danger as the light’s presence represents the speaker’s lost faith as they become punished by their “Heavenly” God. 

There is a Certain Slant of Light - Essay Plan

‘There’s a Certain Slant of Light’

Pain/ Entrapment/ Danger/ Terror

Introduction

-          ‘Corridors‘ in ‘The brain’ in After great pain, a formal feeling comes conveys the horror inside a person – the hidden and scary places in a mind are more dangerous than ‘external ghosts’

-          The last night that she lived where she expresses the pain of being trapped in the world that is ‘awful’ to her.  She sees being ‘dead’ as a way to escape from the pain

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

Central Symbol

Pain

-          ‘Light’ is the central symbol of pain in the poem

-          The speaker claims that it gives us ‘Heavenly hurt’

-          Oxymoronic alliteration emphasising how severe the pain is

-          Giving religious quality to the pain: the hurt is not physical, but emotional, spiritual and mental so leaves ‘no scar’

-          Heaven, rather than being portrayed as place of eternal happiness, it is associated to pain; it emphasises description of sadness in the poem: even Heaven has turned dangerous because of the unbearable pain that she is suffering, nothing can release her from suffering

-          Perhaps the inclusion of the key theme of religion is to add onto the ‘weight’ that the speaker is suffering: religion is not uplifting her suffering, but it is devastating and is ‘oppressing’ her

-          It is perhaps a punishment from God; ‘an imperial affliction’ that damages her soul from the inside: an ‘internal difference’

-          She is implying that the pain is so great that it cannot be explained by usual descriptions – it is something comparable to the energy of God

References to Heaven are also found in Behind Me – dips Eternity where the speaker despises God by regarding Jesus as the ‘Son of None’. She uses a sarcastic tone towards heaven because she does not believe in it – she argues that God does not release her from her pain and that she is still suffering from the ‘Maelstrom’ and the ‘midnight’ in her life that wishes to escape from

Entrapment

-          ‘Light’ is the central motif that symbolises entrapment in the poem

-          The speaker suggests that it ‘oppresses’ her and gives her ‘weight’, giving a sense of suffocation

-          This is ironic: light usually connotes hope and peace but here it is trapping her, giving weights to her. 

-          She is hurt by something that should not be harmful – this signifies her vulnerability and her lack of power to escape from the oppression

-          ‘Tis the seal, despair, -‘ establishes an enigmatic atmosphere to the stanza

-          The juxtaposition might be arguing that the two nouns are the same and have equal qualities

-          The word ‘seal’ has powerful biblical overtones, being both a mark and a ratification or sign of agreement between God an man; this gives it weight – it has been bestowed by a higher power and is therefore inescapable

-          In comparison,  ‘despair’ also depicts the lack of faith.  It suggests that the spealer has completely surrendered to sadness.  Described as ‘an imperial affliction’, ‘despair’ might also be a punishment from God, like the ‘seal’; it empitomises the power of emotional devastation that the speaker is suffering from

The symbolism of light connotes to the use of ‘quartz contentment, like a stone’ in After great pain a formal feeling comes as a symbol of the speaker being trapped in continuous pain.  Quartzes that are used in watches are ‘mechanical’ indicates that the speaker has cannot control the suffering – she is trapped within the pain.      

Terror/ Danger

-          (see above) even God is not helping….

-          Dickinson successfully portrays terror through personification

-          The ‘Landscape listens’ and ‘shadows hold their breaths’

-          This enhances the danger of ‘it’ – which is the light

-          It may seem very terrifying that the speaker cannot even bring to say its name but uses the pronoun ‘it’ instead; euphemism; the light has the whole of the world in fear

-          Projection of the feeling onto the landscape broadens its scope 

-          Terrifying: the poem leaves audiences in confusion about the ‘distance/ on the look fo death’.  It maybe suggesting that someing is beyond reach – there is no end to the suffering. 

-          Hopelessness

In A narrow fellow in the grass, danger is also depicted through the nature.   Euphemism is used as the speaker refers a snake to a ‘narrow fellow’.  This may imply the dangerous power of the snake – it is a phallic imagery that symbol how male power are destructive to women.  The speaker calls it ‘a narrow fellow’ instead in order to calm herself down from the fear

Structure

-          The poem is structured by Iambic and quatrains that reflect the speaker’s attempt to calm down from the panic and stabilise her thoughts.

-          However, clearly, it is not successful

-          When it comes, the landscape listens –

Shadows – hold their breath –‘

-          The structure of the poem resembles some church music that are also quatrains

-         But the use of quatrains does not convey the pleasant feeling in most churches, it adds to the panic caused ‘Cathedral Tunes’.

-         Perhaps she is suggesting that the suffering that ‘Heaven’ and Cathedral Tunes’ are damaging the rhythm of the poem – damaging church hymns that should sound complete and peaceful

-          The usual eight syllables in lines one and three are contracted to seven and the usual six syllables in lines two and four becoming five

-          The stress pattern creates an irregular rhythm, which expresses her panic inside: The effect is so great that her lines are disrupted by the panic  

Similarly, the speaker in What mystery pervades a well also use iambic trimester and tetrameter to indicate entrapment in the poem.  She implies that the set up of the poem resembles the shape of a ‘jar’ that is trapping her.  The structure visualises the suffering to the audience, emphasising the severity of her message as it seems like the audience can actually ‘see’ what the sufferings have caused to her soul. 

-          Most of Dickinson’s poems have an ABCB rhyme scheme with skillful use of pararhymes.

-          In the first three stanzas this patter is followed; lines two and four are rhymed: ‘afternoons’ and ‘tunes’

-          The half rhymes break the rhythm and give an awkward sense to the metre – again, reflecting how the suffering inside breaks the speaker’s attempt to stay calm and stable

-          They disturb the line and make it sound more heavy, conveying how she is suffocating

-          However, the last stanza has a ‘weak’ rhyme in ‘listens’ and ‘Distance’ as well as ‘strong’ single syllable rhyme ‘breath’ and ‘Death’, giving it a tighter form and construction. 

-          This may be because the speaker sees the end of time in this last stanza where her suffering is projected onto the ‘landscape’.  It is no longer personal – even ‘Shadows’ are terrified as they ‘hold their breath’.

-          By changing the rhyme scheme, the speaker is showing that she starts to see the end of all the sufferings – but the way to escape is ‘death’.

-          Presenting a apocalyptic sense in the end of the poem

This technique is echoed in It was not death, for I stoop up where the fifth stanza stands out with the solid rhyme of ‘around’ and ‘ground’.  This, likewise, is indicating that she finds comfort when talking about death as it is ‘when everything that ticked has stopped’ and she is then free from the sufferings

-           

I Felt a Funeral in My Brain - Example Essay #2

“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’.

I Felt a Funeral in my Brain - Notes

I FELT A FUNERAL IN MY BRAIN

Interesting webpage: http://bloggingdickinson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/i-felt-funeral-in-my-brain.html

THEME:  DEATH, PAIN, ENTRAPMENT, ISOLATION, FEAR

SYMBOL

-          “Funeral in my brain”

o   feeling dead inside, grief, anguish, depression

o   reason is being overwhelmed by the irrationality of the unconscious

o   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”.

o   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

o   funeral is a formal event, whose rules and procedures suggest control and order. The control and order implicit in a funeral contrast ironically with the lack of control and the loss of rationality that threaten the speaker.

o   funeral marks the passage from one state to another (life to death), a parallel to the speaker's passing from one stage to another (sanity to insanity). However, the poet is not observing the funeral but is feeling it. She is both observer of the funeral and participant, indicating that the Self is divided.

o   end of the poem, the Self will have shattered into pieces or chaos.

-          “mourner to and fro”

o   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-defense is being “wrecked” by the “senses breaking through”. 

-          “lifting a box” and “creaking across her soul”

o   establish a sense of entrapment that the speaker is unable to fight against with

o   sense of hopelessness hammers home the fact that Dickinson has surrendered herself to all the negativity that appears in her life.

-          “wrecked, solitary, here”

o   admitting utter defeat ® she is completely broken® her being becomes an “ear”

o   the poet’s passivity when presented with funereal sounds now becomes figurative in this synecdochal image® “being, but an ear”

o   Her descent into irrationality separates her from other human beings, making her a member of "some strange race." Her alienation and inability to communicate are indicated by her being enveloped by silence.

-          “plank in reason, broke”

o   reasoning breaks ® entrapment within the “box” ® noise establishes such a heaviness that drowns her

STRUCTURE

-          iambic tetrameter and trimetre as a structure

o   the regularity of this rhythm depicts the perpetual torment as a rigid wall that which is unbreakable

o   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.

-          pararhyme such as “fro” and “through”

o   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

-          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

-          Commas emphasizes on the destruction – “wrecked, solitary, here”

-          In the first three verses of this poem, the repeated oppressive sounds progressively combine to torture the persona’s disembodied ear, of the fourth verse.  There is an auditory focus to be seen in the relentless ‘treading’ of the mourners with their ‘boots of Lead’, the ‘beating’ of the Service and the ‘creaking’ of the coffin – the slow thumping rhythm continues in the tolling bell of the heavens.  The isolated poet loses conventional reasoning to fall into chasms of desolation.

FEATURES

-          ‘the treading’ of the ‘mourners’

o   fear of sound disclosed, ‘the treading’ of the ‘mourners’, establish the cacophony that continuously disrupt her and induce a sense of discomfort

o   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

o   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 began to toll”

o   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 desensitize and dehumanize herself to become an ‘ear’.

-          deification of ‘Brain’

o   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’.

-          Last word “then”

o   "then--," does not finish or end her experience but leaves opens the door for the nightmare-horror of madness.

CONCLUSION

With an imaginary end, there is no definite conclusion for the poet, yet it is unequivocal that being “as an ear”, with “soul being creaked”, one is  doomed to be “wrecked” and enveloped by “solitary”.

MAIN QUOTATIONS:

-          “wrecked, solitary, here”

-          “being, but an ear”

-          “my mind was going numb”

-          “mourner treading, beating”

-          “box creaking across my soul, heavens were a bell”

-          “boots of lead treading”

RHYMES:

-          “fro”,”through”

o   pararhymes: disjointed, lack of harmony

-          “drum”, “numb”

o   lost energy to display her depression and struggle®surrender to reality with solid rhyme

-          “down”,”then”

o   no rhyme at all ® completely lost control ®plunging into unknown “space”

COMPARISON POEMS:

‘There’s a certain slant of light”

“After great pain, a formal feeling comes!”

“It was not death, for I stood up”