I Felt A Funeral In My Brain

Question 1

Key themes

Answer 1

Sensation, (life after) death, existence, the mind (breakdown), dimensions, gothic tropes

Question 2

How does Dickinson use parataxis

Answer 2

To shape gothic tropes (repetition of continuations eg ‘and then’. Creates a macabre and frightening atmosphere, pulling the reader In through the use of present participle (treading, beating)

Question 3

What does Dickinson soley use the sense of hearing

Answer 3

She can isolate gothic tropes and mirror them because out brains will fill in the gaps with things far more putrid than can be written. Imagination is more putrid than the written

Question 4

Structurally what does ‘treading’ and ‘beating’ lead to.

Answer 4

A ‘lead weight’ that first creates a numb feeling and then a ‘creaking’

Question 5

What does the breaking of the plank show

Answer 5

That society is the reason for the weakness and breakdown because she cannot withstand the pressure of her peers

Question 6

Explain ‘I felt a funeral in my brain’

Answer 6

Abstract ideas. Made to sound concrete. Sinister and disturbing imagery

Question 7

Explain ‘mourners to and fro/kept treading, treading’

Answer 7

Percussive (repeated word treading)

Question 8

Explain the auditory imagery

Answer 8

Example of the form mirroring content - echoed in the line ‘beating, beating’

Question 9

Explain ‘senses was breaking through’

Answer 9

Raises the idea that sense is a source of enlightenment (ambiguous)

Question 10

Explain ‘a service like a drum’

Answer 10

Drum is used to keep a beat so by relating a service to it she could say the funeral is a way of humans composing control and order over death. (Argument against religion- world is not conclusion?)

Question 11

Explain ‘I thought/my mind was going numb’

Answer 11

This is oxymoronic, with the ‘thought’ implying an activity of the brain mirrored with the implied inactivity of being numb.
Sensory breakdown and loss of feeling (seen in fly buzz)

Question 12

Key techniques

Answer 12

Anaphora, synecdoche, metaphor, juxtaposition, parataxis

Question 13

Explain ‘creak across my soul’

Answer 13

Possibility of separation of the soul (example of speaker having existential crisis?) -being oppressed controlled and crushed

Question 14

Explain ‘being but an ear’

Answer 14

Speaker reduces themselves to a single body part showing that they are reduced in death. -they can only play a passive role in the experience (dehumanises them)

Question 15

Explain ‘wrecked, solitary, here’

Answer 15

The word ‘wrecked’ implies a shipwreck (an analogy used in other poems such as ‘this world is not conclusion’ to illustrate death)

Question 16

How do ceasura breaks frame the word ‘solitary’

Answer 16

To deal with the idea of solipsism- that we can never know anybody else or what they are thinking

Question 17

Explain ‘and then a plank in reason broke’

Answer 17

.abstract
-shows that’s the poem has structurally gone from slightly concrete to not concrete at all. The breaking is the climax of the poem

Question 18

Explain ‘I dropped down and down/and hit a world at every plunge’

Answer 18

Indicating death because of a dimensional shift. The letter W is capitalised to foreground the noun-this shows that more worlds exist, so why be defined by the views of one religion.
Physical spiral can lead to mental enlightening (breakdown can be positive)

Question 19

Explain ‘And finished, knowing, then’

Answer 19

The ‘knowing’ implies that death causes enlightenment- however there is a juxtaposition between the word finished and the continual punctuation of the dash. Gothic trope of ending on a cliffhanger, and showing that we are nothing

Question 20

Links to other poems about shipwreck

Answer 20

The world is not conclusion

Question 21

Link to other poems about dimensions

Answer 21

A bird came down the walk, what mystery pervades a well

Question 22

Link to other poems about sensations

Answer 22

Fly buzz