death of imagination

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain- Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

And Mourners to and fro

Kept treading - treading - till it seemed

That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,

A Service, like a Drum -

Kept beating - beating - till I thought

My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box

And creak across my Soul

With those same Boots of Lead, again,

Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,

And Being, but an Ear,

And I, and Silence, some strange Race,

Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,

And I dropped down, and down -

And hit a World, at every plunge,

And Finished knowing - then -

In the poem “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,” Emily Dickinson describes the process of succumbing to reality and reason and the negative effect that can have on a person. At the very beginning of the poem, the speaker describes a “funeral, in my brain,” suggesting that something within the speaker is changing or vanishing. Dickinson ten uses the word “treading” twice to describe the “mourners” inside the speakers head, representative of the state of the authors mind. This repetition as well as the word “treading” which, given the solemn tone created by the funeral setting, creates an image of repeated heavy footsteps, couple together to suggest a repetitive, constant wearing down of the speakers mind. Immediately after, “sense [breaks] through,” implying that the wearing down of the mind caused the sense to break through. By discussing sense breaking through immediately after describing a change in the mind by using the image of a funeral, the “sense” that is discussed is contrasted with the original state of the mind before the “funeral” occurred. “Sense” can carry the connotation of common sense and recognition of the outside world and reality. Therefore, the original state of the mind that is contrasted with that “sense” would be a state of creativity, fantasy, and imagination. Dickinson is describing the wearing down of the speaker’s creativity until reality conquers the speaker’s imagination.

Dickinson describes this victory of reality as a tragedy, beginning with the first stanza of the poem. By describing the affair as a “funeral” and something that would bring “mourners,” Dickinson immediately establishes that this event is a depressing one, not one to be celebrated. This mood continues in the third stanza with the phrase “I heard them lift a Box/And creak across my Soul.” Given the funeral setting, the creaking noise coupled with the word “Box” immediately brings to mind the image of a coffin, suggesting that because of the destruction of her imagination, her "Soul," which is her life beyond pure biological survival, has been lead to die as well. Dickinson creates this scene to show that because of the vanishing of the imagination, the speaker can no longer be himself/herself but instead is controlled by the “sense” that broke through. This is supported by the phrase in the second stanza “my mind was going numb.” Considering the mind is the part of the human that defines the individual and sets one human apart from the other, the numbing of the mind shows the disappearance of individual creation and defeat at the hands of the reality and common sense that is uniform for all humans.

The fourth stanza changes to a more direct description of the consequences of the ruin of the speaker’s imagination. The speaker is described as being “wrecked.” The word “wrecked” brings in a physical connotation, suggesting that the negative effects of the destruction of the imagination are serious to the point that they have created a physical manifestation, which is possible as the mental state is important in maintaining physical health. The process of the destruction of the individual which started with the end of the speaker’s imagination is completed in the last stanza. The speaker describes being “dropped down and down” and then mentions a “plunge” which causes her to “[finish] knowing.” The word “plunge” brings up imagery of water and drowning, which leads to the idea of death when coupled with the word “finished” in the next line. The speaker also notes that the cause of this death is the breaking of a “Plank in Reason” once again reiterating the idea that it is reality and reason that have killed the speakers imagination and in doing so have killed the speakers individuality. The speaker also describes the now-gone imagination as positive and its disappearance as a misfortune in the phrase “finished knowing.” This phrase is used to describe what happened to the speaker at the plunge, when reality finally completely won the battle against the speaker. However, considering it was the individuality that was vanquished and the reality that won over the mind of the speaker, “finished knowing” implies that it was when the speaker had his/her imagination that the speaker truly knew the world and when reality finally took over, the speaker stopped “knowing.”

By describing this destructive end to the speaker whose imagination had been destroyed by reality, Dickinson illustrates the importance of imagination and creativity to humans. She shows that without creativity we are unable to keep our “Soul,” what defines an individual as that individual. Reality can help our body survive, but without our imagination, just as the speaker, we too will lose our true self.