Emily Dickinson’s I Felt a Funeral

Emily Dickinson’s “I Felt a Funeral”

Life, death, and reincarnation are portrayed in Emily Dickinson's poem "I felt a Funeral, in my brain". The use of words associated with death gives the poem an ominous and dark karma. To add to this karma, important words that are strong in meaning are capitalized. At the beginning of this poem the feelings of grief and pain are evident. Throughout the rest of the poem, there is a strong sense that the speaker needs to make a choice between a world full of trouble and pain or a heaven that brings solitude and peace. This is all part of a vicious cycle. Sometimes when life doesn't turn out for the best, you need to wait until your cycle is up. This is reflected clearly at the end of the poem. The speaker lives life, passes away, and is reborn again into this world all throughout this poems' entirety.

The first two words of this poem reveal strong feelings. The words "I felt" show that the speaker is talking about themselves. The line "I felt a Funeral, in My Brain" brings to mind death; the word "Funeral" is strongly pointed out by its capitalization. This word combined with "Brain" can be simplified into the fact that death is inside the speaker. "And Mourners to and fro/Kept treading -treading- till it seemed/That Sense was breaking through-." Here, the speaker is bothered by their inner death that keeps mourning over and over throughout their head. The marks between "treading -treading-" allow a pause between the two words, inducing a long, repetitive treading. This repetition causes irritation. Finally, "Sense was breaking through". This simply means that the constant repetition is now starting to make sense. A feeling of relief has surfaced, but only for a short while.

In the second stanza, as quickly as the voices made sense to the speaker, the quicker they stopped. In the line "And when they all were seated" the relief stops, its being seated. When relief is seated and not moving, all seems to stop. The speaker brings us to the funeral by using the words "A Service", meaning funeral service, like one that takes place at a funeral home. Unlike the last stanza, where it all started to make sense, this stanza gets confusing. Confusion is shown in this line, "like a Drum-/Kept beating -beating- till I thought/My Mind was going numb-". Besides showing confusion, this shows repetition between "beating -beating-" and "treading -treading-". This time though, at the end of the stanza instead of making sense, the speakers' mind is going numb. The speakers' thought process is dead, they are not thinking anymore.

In the third Stanza the voices start to take over by opening a box. Shown in lines 9-11, "And then I heard them lift a Box/And creak across my Soul/With those same Boots of Lead". This box is opened and all the problems and troubles lingering inside are released upon the speaker like "Boots of Lead" weighing the speaker down. These problems build up and "Then Space- began to toll,". Portraying suicidal thoughts, the speaker can't take anymore and it's all beginning "to toll", meaning that it is coming close to the end. The upbringing of the soul in line 10 gives a sense of spirituality to the poem, the meaning of these words reflect the concepts of life and death.

During the duration of the fourth stanza, the speaker now hears voices calling to him. This is where the switch from life to death occurs. The line "As all the Heavens were a Bell," is very interesting. What are most bells used for? A church bell rings during time change, a school bell rings when it's time to change class. The use of "bell" in this line is to show the exit from earth and