Havelock Ellis, a British psychologist and author, comments, “Pain and death are part of life. To reject them is to reject life itself.” Despite historically being known as a recluse, American poet Emily Dickinson certainly did not reject life, in fact, pain and death are two topics that she often wrote about. In the literary realm, Dickinson is often known for the ambiguity of her poems, as she commonly writes in vague metaphors. By using figurative language, aural imagery, and poetic music, Dickinson’s poem, “I felt a Funeral in my Brain,” depicts the feeling of a literal pain in the head, such as a headache or migraine, through the metaphor of a funeral.
The poem uses figurative language to create imagery associated with a funeral, suggesting that whatever pain the speaker is enduring in his or her head is so painful that he or she would rather die. The first line, “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” introduces us to the funeral metaphor, in preparation for the descriptions to follow. With the word “funeral,” immediately the reader’s head is filled with all of the images associated with a funeral, such as caskets and funeral dirges. In the last line of the second stanza, “My Mind was going numb” (8), is reminiscent of the dullness of feeling sometimes associated with grieving. Once more the reader is reminded of the funeral metaphor, yet, more literally, the speaker’s mind is “going numb” as a result of the pain. This pain is so great it has anesthetized the senses.
Sound is of particular importance in this poem, as the majority of the imagery used is aural. In the first stanza, the treading of the mourners could be visual imagery, but it is also aural imagery. This suggests the grinding sound of heavy feet, which could be comparable to what every thump and noise feels like to a headache sufferer. The second stanza depicts a funeral dirge as part of this funeral with, “A Service like a Drum,” and the pounding rhythm of the drum (6-7), which could also be a pounding in the head, or a pulsating in the temples, due to a migraine.
Dickinson noticeably points out the importance of the aural imagery in the poem as she starts the third stanza with the line, “I heard them lift a Box” (9). It is worth noting that she uses the word “heard” to describe the lifting of the box, because the concept of lifting a box is more an occurrence that one would recall as a visual image, rather than as a distinct sound. The word “heard” is used to ensure that the reader senses the aural imagery. After comparing the heavens to a bell in the beginning of the fifth stanza, Dickinson continues with “And Being but an Ear” (14), emphasizing that everything the speaker is experiencing in this metaphoric funeral is through her sense of hearing. It is as if the speaker in the poem is encountering everything about the funeral with his or her eyes closed. It is not common for a person to attend a funeral with his or her eyes shut. This does, although, make sense in the case of a migraine, as migraine sufferers often comment that they need to lie down in the dark, as light heightens the intensity of the pain.
As the aural imagery in this poem exemplifies, sound is a crucial part of what makes a poem come to life. The music of poetry is part of what makes it an art form. In this poem, Dickinson uses a variety of poetic devices associated with sound to describe the feeling of a headache in terms of a funeral. The rhythm of “I felt a Funeral in my Brain,” is consistent throughout the poem, which is written mainly in iambs, with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. This form of poetic rhythm gives the poem the feel of a march, in this poem, the march of a funeral procession. It also mimics the pulsating of a severe headache. The only time that the poem varies from the iambic rhythm is in the line, “Wrecked, solitary, here” (16), where the diversion from the iambic rhythm seems to serve as a way to add emphasis to this line, giving power to the words “wrecked” and “solitary.”
Dickinson also used repetition of certain words in the poem to create alliteration. In the first stanza, this is found in the line, “Kept treading- treading…” (3), where the repetition of the word “treading,” because of the alliteration of the letter “t”, creates a sound associated with the marching or dragging of feet in the funeral procession. Here, it also adds to the description of the constant ache in the speaker’s head. In the second stanza, alliteration occurs again in a line that again begins with the word “kept,” hinting at the repetitiveness to follow, as it states “Kept beating- beating…” (7), which is referring to the line before it which describes, “A Service like a Drum” (6). The alliteration of the letter “b” seems to imitate the reverberations of the drum being played in the funeral march. In the other sense of this poem, this beating again adds to the pulsing in the head that is associated with a headache or migraine.
The words “beating” is important to note because of the harshness of the drum sound it seems to reproduce, but there are other examples in the poem, where the words seems to literally make the sounds they are describing, which is known as onomatopoeia. An obvious example of the onomatopoeia in this poem is found in the third stanza where it says, “And creak across my Soul” (10), describing when the speaker hears the lifting of the previously mentioned box. The word “creak” sounds like a creaking of a box, and works very effectively in describing a severe headache because every noise, every creak, is extreme and can feel like an excruciating pain.
While it is possible that the pain Dickinson describes is not physical, but emotional, the poetic devices clearly paint a picture of a tangible pain, such as a migraine or severe headache. Through her descriptive writing, using the pulsing of the meter, the repetition of harsh sounds, and the discussion of the funeral, Dickinson makes it possible for us to feel the pain through words. This is the art of poetry, enabling a reader to feel and understand sensations through the use of language.
Works Cited
Dickinson, Emily. “I felt a Funeral in my Brain.” Ed. Robert DiYanni. Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2007. 920.
