Explication of Emily Dickinsons I Felt a Funeral in My...

Explication of Emily Dickinsons I Felt a Funeral in My Brain Works Cited Not Included In the poem I Felt a Funeral in My Brain Emily Dickinson exposes a persons intense anguish and suffering as they sink into a state of extreme madness. The poem is a carefully constructed analysis of the speakers own mental experience. Dickinson uses the image of a funeral-service to symbolize the death of the speakers sanity. The poem is terrifying for the reader as it depicts a realization of the collapse of ones mental stability, which is horrifying for most. The reader experiences the horror of the speakers descending madness as the speakers mind disintegrates and loses its grasp on reality. I Felt a Funeral in My Brain,†¦show more content†¦The speaker can no longer take the pain and consequently her mind was going numb (line 8). Next, I Felt a Funeral in My Brain creates an illusion of a mind becoming unstable by describing the speakers irrationality. The speakers irrationality is represented in the third stanza and fourth stanza. It is evident that the speaker is beginning to hear voices, which is why she states And then I heard them lift a Box (line 9). The voices that the speaker is hearing are beginning to take over her mind as she expresses And creak across my Soul, which gives the readers the illusion of the speaker losing all control. All the problems that the speaker is experiencing as a result of her mental stability are beginning to take their toll, which is evident through the statement Boots of Lead, again, Then Space - began to toll (line 11-12). The speaker has now fallen into a state of irrationality, and her mind has suffered enough, and consequently thoughts of suicide plague the speaker. The statement As all the Heavens were a Bell represents the speakers feelings that her mind has a chance of being at peace again if she ends her existing insanity, and she must therefore act upon her suicide thoughts (line 13). The speaker is trying to convince herself to follow through with her thoughts of suicide, as clearly indicated in her statement Wrecked, solitary, here-. The speaker