"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" Analysis

"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain"
by Emily Dickinson


I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

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,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -

In the poem "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain", Emily Dickinson depicts the experience of one's descent into insanity as the grasp on one's mind becomes looser and looser. She uses the image of a funeral service and a physical death to describe the death of the mind.  Through this connection between the loss of life and the loss of mind, Dickinson characterizes insanity as a death that, even though not physical, kills the part of a person that makes him or her human.

Dickinson begins the poem by describing the first stage insanity.  At the funeral in the person's mind, the mourners went "to and fro" and "kept treading - treading".  This back and forth and constant motion shows the last few moments of sanity as the mind tries to hold on to what is left of its grasp of reality.  The repeated, circular motion represents the confusion and disoriented state that the mourners and the person is experiencing.  This confusion continued until "Sense was breaking through".  The capitalized "Sense" is the being that is the human mind.  As "Sense" broke through the thin ice, the barrier that separates sanity and insanity, the mind begins its descent into nothingness.

The poem then focuses on the disorientation that now pervades the mind.  The drums of the service "Kept beaintg - beating - till I thought / My mind was going numb-".  These drums and their incessant  beating represent the overwhelming number of thoughts and feelings that bombards the unprotected mind.  These thoughts inevitably overwhelm the mind as overtime, it becomes "numb" to thoughts.  After the "numbness", silence settles in.  As the mind is now unable to process the world that surrounds it, it becomes disconnected from reality and is left with "Wrecked, solitary, here - "

After it loses its connection with the outside world, the mind begins to lose itself.  The "Plank in Reason" that breaks represents the start of the frail infrastructure of the mind itself crumbling down.  As reason and logic begin to crumble, the mind itself ends.  The last line of the poem states that the person "Finished knowing - then".  In this line, the word "knowing" means the most simple of mental functions, the ability to be aware and to perceive.  Without the ability to know, the person is no longer human and is now a hollow shell of what once was a thinking creature.

In this poem, Dickinson depicts the horrifying experience of losing ones mind.  As the world crumbles around and on top of consciousness,  both feelings of being overwhelmed and isolated begin to spread throughout the mind.  These feelings are then followed by a nothingness that marks the end of the human mind.