The Nostalgic Nature of Death in I Felt a Funeral in My Brain

Norwegian painter Edvard Munch once expressed that 'Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.' Similar to Munch's thought, literary critics use the collapse and mental senselessness as a central theme to draw attention to the release of the character's grip on reality. Emily Dickinson's style of writing corresponds with the idea of being afflicted by irrationality, mental decline, and death itself. In 'I Felt A Funeral, in My Brain,' 'It was not death, for I stood up,' and 'I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind,' Emily Dickinson uses dashes, capitalization, and figurative language to highlight the psychological effects of her self-enforced seclusion and the poignant nature of death, immortality, and love.

Dickinson's tendency to use dashes and figurative language emphasizes her desire to withdraw from the world as she is gripped and paralyzed by the devastating emotion of irrationality. In Dickinson's 'I felt a Cleaving in my Mind,' there are dashes after about almost every line. The dashes after each line allow for pauses, emphasizing the rhythm of the poem. The main focus of this poem digs into one of Dickinson's phycological breakdowns, considering the word 'cleaving' means to split. As her mind felt as if it was falling apart, she attempted to 'match it—seam by seam,' The break in the middle of the line emphasizes that the psychological breakdown that she was experiencing was not purposeful. She had not intended for her 'brain' to be split, but once it did, she had tried to rejoin the pieces back together. Dickinson uses the metaphor of a seamstress to express her desire to match the pieces of her mind back together. Although she 'tried to match it,' her efforts were of no use. Dickinson, like the seamstress trying to sew her brain together, is unable to put herself back together in a stable mental state. In the second stanza, she longs to join her thoughts together, but they unravel like a string of yarn. It is as if the ball of yarn could not be used to knit her thoughts back together. Along with the metaphor in the second stanza, the dashes account for pauses in between every other word to draw attention to her mental deterioration. Overall, Dickinson 'strove' to join her mind and thoughts back together once they had all left her, which is shown through the dashes and metaphors. In 'I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain,' the stanzas lead the reader into Dickinson's descent into madness. Dickinson feels as if the funeral is happening inside her mind. The dashes in between the 'treading' indicate that those who have attended the funeral are pacing back and forth in her head and she is unable to get them out. When the funeral started, 'A Service, like a Drum— Kept beating—beating,' inside her mind and was overtaking her thoughts. The pauses in between the verse reveal that Dickinson can only hear the drum-like noise that is overwhelming her. She compares the noises to a drum because the intensity of the sounds around her seemed as if it was as loud as a drum. Throughout the poem, her mental condition worsens as she experiences the funeral. The last stanza explains that the metaphorical floorboards start to break and as she falls through the never-ending hole of torture, Dickinson crashes into the world several times. The last stanza ends with a dash and the reader is left with nothing but an assumption of what happened. In both poems, the mental decline of Dickinson is prevalent with the use of pauses in the lines as well as the comparative language used.

The use of capitalization and symbolism in Dickinson's writing highlights the emotional state of despair and depression that was faced throughout her life. In 'I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,' Dickinson emphasizes the chaos inside her mind. Throughout the poem, words that require emphasis to draw attention to the meaning are capitalized. In the third stanza, she heard someone 'lift a Box,' which can imply to be a coffin and had a great effect on her 'Soul.' She feels as if they are directly harming her soul and walking all over it. As the mourners walk over her again with the 'Boots of Lead,' she feels a heavy weight on her. The boots are symbolic of the weight which she feels is put on her. In the fourth stanza, Dickinson accentuates that the sky rings like a 'Bell.' Dickinson finds herself with a strange species alone somewhere. This connects to her self-conceived isolation. She is alone and drops 'down, and down—' into the world, hitting every corner of the world. The poem depicts the descent into madness that Dickinson goes through. In 'It was not Death, for I stood up,' there are many cases in which Dickinson uses symbolism to depict the emotional nature of death. The bells 'putting out their Tongues' describes the clappers inside the bell and were ringing till 'Noon.' This implies that the bells are ringing somewhere around her, marking the passage of time. Dickinson indicates that it was 'not Death' nor 'Night nor 'Frost' that she felt. Throughout the poem, she capitalizes the time of day to emphasize when things take place. She felt as if 'Siroccos,' the relentless and burning Saharan winds, was crawling all around her. Her 'Marble' feet felt as if they could not move off the ground and the capitalization bring emphasis towards her feelings. In the third stanza, Dickinson had seen the 'Figures' which represent chaos itself because she has seen it all. The last stanza thoroughly indicates her despair and the mental decline that she undergoes. Throughout the poem, Dickinson's feelings become more dreadful. In both poems, Dickinson's emotional thoughts are prevalent through the capitalization and symbolism used in each poem.

Emily Dickinson uses dashes, capitalization, and figurative language in 'I Felt A Funeral, in My Brain,' 'It was not death, for I stood up,' and 'I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind' to emphasize her isolation and the nostalgic nature of death, immortality, and love. Dickinson used her poems as a way to describe her feelings in an imaginative form. Her mental state was deteriorating and used several key elements to convey her message.

Works Cited

• Dickinson, Emily. “I felt a Cleaving in my Mind.” https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I_felt_a_Cleaving_in_my_Mind_%E2%80%94.
• Dickinson, Emily. “It was not Death, for I stood up.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44085/it-was-not-death-for-i-stood-up-355.
• Dickinson, Emily. “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain.” https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45706/i-felt-a-funeral-in-my-brain-340.