Wild nights – Wild nights!

Poetry | Emily Dickinson
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Critically Analyze the Poem “I felt a Funeral in My Brain”

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Critically analyze the poem I Felt a Funeral in My Brain by Emily Dickinson Emily Dickinson - wrote I Felt a Funeral in My Brain in The poem tells the story of a funeral taking place inside the poet s own mind It is not a real funeral She uses the funeral images to show the breaking down of her thoughts and feelings So the poem depicts the poet s descent into madness The Funeral Inside the Mind At first the poet feels a funeral taking place in her mind I felt a Funeral in my Brain The mourners are walking to and fro inside her brain Their footsteps are heavy and endless She feels that she is losing her sense So the first stanza clearly shows that she is in a deep mental pain The Service and the Drum Then the mourners sit down and a service begins She

compares the service to the beating of a drum The sound is repeated again and again At one point she feels her mind is going numb This shows how she is slowly losing control over her thoughts The Lifting of the Coffin Next the mourners lift the coffin She hears the coffin s creaking sound into her soul The heavy sound of the coffin and the Boots of Lead give her a feeling of great weight It means that she has a heavy burden inside her mind The Final Breakdown In the final stanza she says a plank of the coffin has broken She also says that it is a plank in reason It means the poet has lost her logical reasoning Then we see that she is dropping down and down very deep And I dropped down and down - This drop suggests a complete mental breakdown of the poet In conclusion the poem tells the painful story of the poet s mental breakdown through the image of a funeral It is a moving picture of the struggle inside her soul

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Emily Dickinson
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