The Allegory of the Funeral

Saurav Sharma

English 11

Mrs. Hotchkiss

11/4/12

The Allegory of the Funeral

Funerals: the encapsulation of morbidity, alongside the certainty that something has been lost. Funerals are done so systematically, that one begins to feel more and more despondent as they continue. Emily Dickinson in her poem “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain”, uses this systematic organization of a funeral to provide a familiar situation that readers can understand, and that also emphasizes the loss of her mind. According to Emily Dickinson, societies' banal actions, acted as the prominent catalysts in her loss of coherency; this is portrayed in “I Felt a Funeral in My Brain” where her use of rhythm and repetition are used to share this with her reader's. Her poem generally follows a consistent pattern, mostly written in iambs, where the unstressed syllable follows a stressed syllable. This was most probably used by Dickinson to depict a pulsating headache, that continues to throb and throb, similar to how a funeral procession seemingly becomes more unbearable as it continues. In lines 3-4 of the poem she says that the mourners continue to tread and tread throughout the funeral procession until eventually “sense begins to break through”. She may have used the specific word tread, to symbolize a march, in this case, a funeral march. Dickinson used the line “sense was breaking through” to symbolize a fleeting sense of understanding, that was never articulated, and eventually lost. Stanza two in it's entirety shows the reader how Dickinson minds is addled even further; “And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum -Kept beating - beating - till I thought My mind was going numb -”. Her “headache” so to speak began hurting more profusely, leading her to be inconvenienced by a feeling of numbness, which left her unable to think. In line three of the first stanza, Dickinson use of repetition: “kept treading treading”, creates alliteration with the t sound. This t sound in the context in which it's in can be associated with marching, or dragging of feet. This dragging of feet and marching can be compared to the conventionality of those surrounding her, and how this conventionality leads to the constant ache in the Dickinson's head. This may also be alluding to the scuffling of feet in funeral processions, as the mourners pass to and fro. In line 7 of stanza 2, the word kept is used again to describe the “Service of the Drum”: “kept beating beating”, this resonation of the drum through the b sound can be seen as a corollary to the drums that are played at a funeral procession. The continual beating could allow one to assume, based on the precedents given to them in the poem prior to line 7, that this repetitiveness is leading to her inability to make of sense of things. Dickinson uses such powerful and relative imagery to create simplicity in her message. It was very easy to pick up on what she was trying to convey, due to the familiarity in which it was written. “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” was written in such a way that it almost seemed as if it was showing a pattern of decadence, with everything in the poem becoming more and more severe. From her “sense breaking through” to “the Service of the Drum”, Dickinson's “I Felt a Funeral in my Brain” was made tangible through her use of poetic devices: rhythm and repetition.