Poetry Ch. 4 Imagery (2)

"And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul." Pg 776

The poem "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain" by Emily Dickinson is an allegory. There are many symbols throughout the poem that contribute to the overall allegory. The overall allegory is that the speaker's funeral is a symbol for the speaker losing her mind and going crazy. The funeral is not a literal funeral because if the speaker was actually dead, he/she could not hear; it is symbolic of the burial of her current state of mind. A symbol in the poem that helped me arrive at this conclusion is the "Funeral, in my Brain." This explicitly tells readers that the funeral is not real. I concluded from this that the funeral was for her brain in her brain. Also, "Sense was breaking through" suggests that something is breaking into her mind and it was not going well. "My Mind was going numb" explains that the speaker's mind is not longer working properly; it is almost as if it is not their because the speaker cannot feel it the way he/she once could. The "strange Race Wrecked" symbolizes the beginning of the end. This point identifies the breaking point for the speaker. After that, everything goes down hill, or is "dropped down, and down." The last thought concludes the allegory of the poem with a symbol that is very relevant to the idea the speaker losing her mind: "And Finished knowing."