Nov 15, 2009

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain | Themes

Madness and Sanity
“I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” is a poem that, in part, presents the impending mental collapse of its speaker, a collapse that Dickinson likens to the rituals of a funeral to ultimately explore the figurative “death” of the speaker’s sanity. The word felt in the poem’s opening line suggests that the first throbbings of the collapse could be physically perceived; this merging of physical sensation and mental perception is sustained throughout the poem. By comparing the speaker’s mental breakdown to a funeral, Dickinson suggests the horror and...