Mad World (Question 10)

In "I felt a Funeral, in my Brain," Emily Dickinson utilizes powerfully vivid and unique imagery. In describing the funeral, Dickinson almost exclusively appeals to the sense of hearing. The speaker hears the service as "like a Drum--/Kept beating--beating" (5-6). She hears "them lift a Box" (9)--that is, her casket--rather than feeling it being lifted, and she hears the pallbearers "creak across [her] Soul" (10). Space "tolls" (12), "the Heavens were a Bell" (13), and she is simply "but an Ear" (14), with "Silence" as "some strange Race" (15). These strong, thunderous sounds and descriptions evoke a sense of entrapment and despair. The lack of sensations other than hearing also reflect the speaker's feeling of mental and/or emotional death, extending the image of the funeral in her brain. In the dark of night, it is not only the lack of vision that frightens many; it is the enhanced sense of hearing that truly spooks. By relying nearly solely on this sense, Dickinson writes into her poem a sense of fear, despair, and utter hopelessness.