This poem is about a mental breakdown felt by Dickinson, she is in a state of psychic trauma. The mood of changes progressively throughout the poem; it becomes darker and more surreal. The opening line ˜I felt a funeral, in my Brain' has the effect of causing the reader's imagination to be shocked, horrified and enthralled by this image. It is a figurative image, shown by the use of the word ˜felt' , which is a surprising choice of verb in this context because one would usually expect the word ˜saw'. I think Dickinson is showing that the depression is very deeply rooted in her, causing her to experience moral madness. .
This theme of something evil and psychotic penetrating her brain is expanded and developed through the poem. The use of aural devices: ˜treading- treading' and then ˜beating- beating' and ˜toll' creates a culmination of noise, like an attack is being staged on her senses. These devices enable the reader to briefly experience an aggressive assault on their own mental stability. The percussive rhythm and threatening sound of the verbs creates a mood of expectation for a penultimate moment. This theme can be seen in another of her poems, ˜There's a certain slant of light'. It is exemplified especially in the line ˜when it comes the landscape listens' which has a surreal quality. However, in ˜I felt a funeral, in my brain' the force seems to be more menacing than surreal. The noise is strongly contrasted when, after all the crescendo of noise there is silence: ˜and I, and silence, some strange Race wrecked, solitary, here- ˜it creates a heightened feeling of suspense, like the calm before the storm. One chilling moment in the poem in her journey is when she describes how this funeral service was expecting .
Another theme is that of imprisonment in her mental state or perhaps her constrictive society.
