Dickinson's Death in LifeIn "I Felt A Funeral In My Brain" by Emily Dickinson, Dickinson describes a funeral taking place in her brain. Over the past 124 years since its publication, this poem has received much debate about its meaning. Some believe Dickinson is writing from beyond the grave while others think the speaker is still alive. Likewise, some believe that the funeral is metaphorical while others argue that it is literal. Although different people may interpret different meanings of the poem, I believe that Dickinson wrote this poem from the perspective of a living person. This person is experiencing an intense migraine which is used to illustrate “Say no to plagiarism.” Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay First we need to understand what each line and its context means in Dickinson's perspective. The first stanza of the poem - I heard a funeral, in my brain, and mourners to and fro kept walking - walking - until it seemed the Sense was breaking in and revealing the setting. In this situation, we see that the funeral is both metaphorical and literal. From an outside perspective, the funeral is metaphorical because it isn't actually happening. But Dickinson says “I heard a funeral in my brain,” showing that for her the funeral is literal. She physically feels the funeral, so it's not a metaphor for her. She continues to describe the "mourners" walking "back and forth" in her brain, their small footsteps stabbing pain into her head. The mourners "Kept walking - walking - until it seemed / That sense was breaking through -" which describes the monotony of the migraine throbbing in his head. Note the repetition of the word “tread,” which makes the poem feel to the reader like a migraine feels. The next verse -And when everyone was seated,A service, like a drum -He kept beating - beating - until I the thought that my mind was going numb intensifies the sensation of pain in my head. Even after the little mourners have sat down, the service continues to haunt her. Once again, he repeats a word (“beat” this time) to highlight the metronomic pulse in his brain. The verse ends with “My mind was going numb,” which is the indicator that he can't take it anymore. In the next verse - And then I heard them lift a box and crunch through my soul with those same lead boots, again, Then Space - began to play, the funeral chronology continues, intensifying the action. At this point the box is raised and ready to be buried. The box “creaks in [his] soul,” which illustrates how the pain has taken over his entire body and is no longer contained in his head. Recall the “lead boots” that little mourners use to stomp on her brains. If "space has started to weigh on you", it means that the space around you is taking a toll on you, both physically and mentally. This shows that it is no longer just the feelings in her head that influence her, but also everything around her. The first line of the next stanza -As all the skies were a bell,And being, but an ear,And I, and silence, a strange, broken, lonely race, here defines the heavens as a bell. This makes the image of the omnipresent and ever-reachable sky ring out all around her. The next line defines his being as “but an ear”: he has no choice but to listen to the ringing. The sentence "And I, and the silence, a strange race" has a strange grammatical pattern, but it cangive it meaning. The parallel structure of “And I, and Silence” is used to equate her and silence; she is silence. Likewise, She and silence are also a “strange breed”. He uses race to signify a competition, as if he is struggling with the silence in order to reach the silence and have his totality become silence. But his business is “destroyed” just as it is. The change in meter of this line signals a change in the poem. The final stanza -And then a board in reason broke, and I fell down, and down -and I hit a world, with each dive, and I finished knowing - then it changes the poetry. Dickinson says that "a plank in reason breaks", demonstrating a breakdown in her sanity as the migraine wins. The next line, “And I fell, down and down,” is an indicator that there has been a change. She is the one who falls, which means she now imagines herself in the coffin falling through the earth. Although she is actually still alive, she imagines herself dead, due to having such extreme migraines. The phrase “And you hit a world, with every dive” suggests that perhaps she is passing into another world, that is, the afterlife. Although it now seems convincingly that she is dead, the poem ends with "And I finished knowing - then -". This sentence structure is strange because the poem ends with a hyphen. This is the sign that she is not actually dead. “So –” signals that something else should follow. She doesn't need to tell us what follows, she just needs to indicate that this isn't actually the end for us to know that she's still alive. Dickinson uses "I Felt A Funeral" to show someone who is experiencing an illness or headache so intense that they feel as if they are dead. This is evident from the text of the poem. Many of the descriptors in the text are consistent with the symptoms of migraines and other illnesses. The purpose of describing an illness with the image of a funeral is to demonstrate that there is death in life. Dickinson often discussed death in her poems. Throughout his work, death seems to be a recurring theme. For example, in “My Life Had Stood A Loaded Gun,” she describes herself as a gun, an instrument of death, and then discusses immortality versus the power to die. In Johnson #327 he wonders if he is afraid of death, life, or resurrection. This recurring theme of death is often disturbing and cryptic, but is always used alongside life. Throughout her life, Dickinson was very close to death or mortal feelings quite often. During his adolescence he often fell ill and in one case had a prolonged illness lasting a year. In her final years of writing, she became a recluse and became very depressed. It is quite possible that throughout his life he felt death over and over again even as he continued to live, and developed a philosophy of death in life. This idea of ​​death in life is countered by Herman Melville in Moby-Dick. In the novel there are multiple examples of symbolism of rebirth or life in death. Protagonist Ishmael is almost killed, but escapes a shipwreck by drifting on top of another character's coffin. The symbol of the coffin, a vessel of death, which now serves as a vessel for life, is a metaphor for how there is life even in death. Also, after almost all the characters are killed, he mentions Melville. the sky and the ocean. He describes the sky as feminine and the ocean as masculine, which is again a symbol of rebirth, as both a male and a female are necessary for new human life. Melville's view of death in Moby-Dick is almost the exact opposite of Dickinson's philosophy of death in "I Felt A Funeral", as Melville believes in life in death while Dickinson advocates death in life. The famous poet Walt Whitman, who wrote in the same time period as.