Emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis. An Analysis Of Irony In Emily Dickinsonā€™S ā€œI Felt A Funeral In My Brainā€ Essay Example 2022-12-30

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Emily Dickinson's poem "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" is a powerful and unsettling exploration of the speaker's experience of mental turmoil. The poem is structured as a series of vignettes, each describing a different aspect of the speaker's distress.

The first stanza describes the speaker's sense of being trapped inside their own mind as they experience a funeral: "And mourners, to and fro / Kept treading - treading - till it seemed / That sense was breaking through." This imagery suggests the speaker's feelings of confinement and suffocation, as if their thoughts are closing in on them.

The second stanza describes the speaker's struggle to escape this mental state: "And when they all were seated, / A Service, like a Drum - / Kept beating - beating - till I thought / My mind was going numb." Here, the speaker's thoughts are depicted as a monotonous and oppressive drumbeat, overwhelming their ability to think clearly.

The third stanza reveals the speaker's fear of being trapped in this state forever: "And then I heard them lift a Box / And creak across my Soul / With those same Boots of Lead, again, / Then Space - began to toll." The imagery of a heavy box being lifted and carried across the speaker's soul adds to the sense of weight and suffocation, and the mention of "Boots of Lead" suggests the burden of the speaker's thoughts. The reference to "Space" toll[ing] suggests the vastness and emptiness of the speaker's experience, adding to the sense of isolation and despair.

The final stanza describes the speaker's sense of hopelessness and resignation: "As all the Heavens were a Bell, / And Being, but an Ear, / And I, and Silence, some strange Race / Wrecked, solitary, here - " Here, the speaker compares their experience to being trapped inside a bell, with the constant noise of their thoughts deafening them to the outside world. The reference to being "Wrecked, solitary, here" emphasizes the speaker's isolation and loneliness in the midst of their mental turmoil.

Overall, Emily Dickinson's "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" is a poignant and evocative depiction of the experience of mental distress. Through vivid imagery and powerful language, the poem captures the sense of confinement, overwhelming noise, and hopelessness that can accompany such experiences.

I Felt A Funeral In My Brain Analysis Essay Essay

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

Then lastly her soul is taken from her which is the spiritual principle embodied in human beings The speaker compares the heavens to a bell which is to be assumed as the service taking place in a church. This means that the speaker is as terrified as the reader. . The readers can imagine themselves there in her place, experiencing their own deaths in full consciousness because of the detailed depiction of her sense of hearing. Most of her issues were within her mind. But ultimately Emily Dickinson is remembered for her unique poetry.

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Literary Analysis Of Dickinsonā€™s I Felt A Funeral, In My Brain: [Essay Example], 1310 words GradesFixer

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

In conclusion, Emily Dickinson succeeds in communicating the terrifying yet interesting message that keeps the reader glued to the poem throughout. The reader also can assume that she finally came to a sense of reality and overcome her experience of depression. READ ALSO: Analysis of the Poems From Golden Threshold Some readers feel that the main focus of this poem is the actual experience of death, rather than any metaphorical exploration of psychological death: that the poem enacts approaching death, loss of the senses, etc. In the third line of this stanza, she is being carried in her coffin to her burial place. Stanza Two And when they all were seated A Service, like a Drum- Kept beating- beating- till I thought My Mind was going Numb- When her surroundings finally quiet down, the speaker can feel the silence and knows that the Mourners have been seated for the funeral.

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An Analysis of Dickinsonā€™s I Felt a Funeral in My Brain

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

After finishing her final term at the Academy in the August 1847, Dickinson began attending South Hadley Seminary for Women, now know as Mount Holyoke College, about ten miles from Amherst. The second line of this This hints that the funeral she has felt is actually her own. This is why she cannot see anything. These short dashes can also represent the life of an organism or idea. We do not know what the funeral is for and her constant transition between the physical, mental, and even spiritual when the speaker refers to themselves makes the poem even more puzzling. Within short, compact phrases she expressed far-reaching ideas; amidst paradox and uncertainty her poetry has an undeniable capacity to move and provoke. Versions of Reality The narrator describes the physical, intellectual, and spiritual realms being one with no distinction between them.

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I felt a Funeral, in my Brain: Themes & Analysis

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

To make it easier to understand the poem it needs to be analyzed and thought out. She implies, she has come to the end of her reasoning, and can go no further. The speaker is aware of her own motion in space. The plank of reason which supported her thus far breaks, and she plunges right through it to an endless downward journey. Have you read these? In my life I have met people just like Emily Dickinson who were mentally depressed and very unsociable. She did not refer to major historical events or other people, such as the oppression of 19th-century women and civil wars.

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I Felt A Funeral, In My Brain

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

She is being transported in her coffin to her final resting place in the third line of this verse. She is desolate and by herself. This describes how the depression slowly takes control of her whole body as a whole. Symbol of the death of the accused self. Once her father died she was alone. Dickinson often writes short poems and uses unusual capitalisations of words, punctuation and slant rhyme. The mental breakdown is seen by the poet as akin to losing consciousness.


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I Felt a Funeral, In My Brain

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

A funeral is for the dead, meaning the author is thinking about herself being dead laying inside the casket while people are seated around her. A glance at one of her poems may lead one to believe that she was quite a simple poet, although a closer examination of her verse would uncover the complexity it contains. Still, she cannot see but can hear the bell. She claims to feel the box being lifted and hears the Boots of Lead as they carry her to the grave. The use of the slant rhyme wakes us up out of the boredom of the marching sound, and this turn also marks the waking up of Emily when she realized that something was wrong with her mind.

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An Analysis of Emily Dickinson's I Felt a Funeral in...

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

Metaphors are a massive factor in understanding the meaning of this poem. In her lifetime, she composed more poems than most modern Americans will even read in their lifetimes. Finally, as she is lowered to the bottom of her grave, it dawns on her that she is dead. A mental experience that she is describing through the analogy of the funeral. She first claims that a funeral was felt in her head. By using symbols, irony, oxymoron, imagery and punctuation, the poet greatly succeeds in showing the reality of death and her own doubtful feelings towards time after death. Throughout the poem there are plenty of words that can be considered as symbolism.

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'I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain' by Emily Dickinson

emily dickinson i felt a funeral analysis

All this thinking resulted in vivid imagery. Her father drove away all of the men in her life so she never found love. This funeral is a symbol of an intense suffering that threatens to destroy the speaker's life but at last only her present, unbearable consciousness. . The readers can start to realize that this is actually her funeral when the box is lifted and she feels it. This is when she hears the drum roll in her mind. The speaker feels that her mind throbbing until' it seemed, that sense breaking through.

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