The unconscious refers to experiences that are beyond our control and that occur without us being aware of them. Among people with mental illness, many people feel disconnected from themselves and begin to experience a deep sense of loneliness and anxiety. When falling into madness, we quickly allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the irrationality of the unconscious. Similarly, the concept of the chaos of the unconscious and the horror of descending madness is important in the poem I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain, by Emily Dickinson. The poem traces the speaker's mind as he experiences a metaphorical funeral for his sanity. At first, the speaker feels the weight and pain of her impending mental collapse. Shortly after the funeral begins, the speaker becomes numb to feelings of pain and terror. Ultimately, her last piece of normalcy and solidity shatters beneath her, releasing her into a new world of madness. Gothic literature of this period focused on the supernatural, madness, and death and became essential in showing people that there was a way to explore the dark and irrational. Dickinson highlights aspects of dark romanticism and gothic literature, including madness and hysteria. In the poem I Felt a Funeral, in my Brain, Emily Dickinson follows the speaker's descent into madness and the terrors of mental destruction as reason turns to illusion, ultimately emphasizing the loss of self that accompanies madness mental. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Dickinson uses a metaphor of physical mourners embodying the speaker's impending collapse in the first two stanzas to illustrate the endless pain and suffering that comes with infinity. weight of imminent mental collapse. In the second line of the first stanza, the speaker begins to set the scene for the physical funeral and describes the people in her mind: "And the mourners came and went/Kept walking - walking - until 'it seems'. The “weepers” that come and go in his brain show the physical weight of people, representing the pain that weighs him down. The capital letter both personifies the illusion of the mourners in his mind and emphasizes how they are the only other substantial being in his imagination. The mourners also represent the events that cause the speaker's breakdown. These events are continuous in the speaker's mind, just as they repeatedly "walk" through the stanza. Additionally, her continued walking shows how unhappy she is and how stuck in a never-ending cycle she feels. Dashes between words slow the pace and increase the pain felt by the speaker. Later in the poem, in the sixth line of the second stanza, the speaker begins to describe a metaphorical drum to emphasize the mental impact that service takes on her mental health: "A service, like a drum - / Continued to beat - to beat - until I thought / My mind became numb - ". The comparison of the drum-like service shows that there are no words or other sensations in one's mental funeral, only the feelings of a repeating drum. Continuing, similar to the footsteps of the mourners in the first stanza, the repeated beating of the drums conveys the sadness awakening in her mind as she begins to feel her mind growing numb. The word “Drum” is capitalized to personify him, showing his physical powerand its never-ending impact on his mental state. In this stanza, the word "mind" has been changed from the previous use of the word brain, making it a more intellectual experience. The brain is visible and tangible, while the mind is invisible and focuses on feeling and imagining. Her numb mind shows that she is numb to her feelings, her conscience, and her ability to recognize herself and the outside world. In conclusion, the use of physical mourners and repetition helps convey the limitless pain and suffering that results from the unmanageable weight of mental insanity. Additionally, by using the personification of silence in the fourth stanza, Dickinson emphasizes feelings of alienation and detachment from the self as the individual becomes numb to feelings of grief and terror. At the beginning of the fourth stanza, the poem changes and begins to describe mental sensations rather than physical experiences as the body can no longer control its senses: "As all the heavens were a bell, / And a being, but an ear ". In order to show his brain heading towards death, "Heavens" is capitalized to personify it, thus demonstrating a feeling of hysteria. Overwhelmed by her inescapable mental madness, the speaker is reduced to nothing and becomes empty of everything “except one ear.” The word "being" describes a human being, the being, being only an ear, shows how it becomes a passive receiver of noise, unable to control what it hears, in the same way that it does not is not able to control what happens to his mental health. . In doing so, Dickinson effectively creates a feeling of panic and helplessness. The words “Bell” and “Ear” are capitalized to personify them. The capitalization of "Ear" suggests that she has become the ear and therefore has no control over her senses. The “Bell” is personified as a distinct being, calling to him, creating a more religious experience than that at the beginning of the stanza. Continuing in the fourth stanza, the speaker begins to understand her isolation and to feel the heavy burden of silence: “And I, and silence, a strange breed, / Shipwrecked, lonely, here.” Silence is described as a feeling of emptiness, where one's mind is an empty world filled only with sounds. The word "Silence" is capitalized because it is personified as a physical being that surrounds him and does not allow him to speak. The “strange race” illustrates how alienated they have become and they no longer feel human, they feel separated from any sense of normalcy that might have once existed. Her descent into irrationality separates her from others, making her a member of a “strange race.” His alienation is indicated by the crushing silence. Her use of “castaway” and “loner” shows how aware the speaker is of her own mental state and that she is alone and destroyed. Ultimately, the use of the personification of silence illustrates the feelings of isolation and detachment from oneself when one becomes paralyzed by the feelings around one. Subsequently, Dickinson personifies a broken plank as her last fragment of rationality in the final stanza to display the destruction of reason and stability that results from the usurpation of the individual's madness and terror. The speaker begins to describe her physical loss of sanity as she is released into the worlds of delirium and reads: "And then a plank in sanity, broke, / And I fell, and I fell" . According to Dickinson's lexicon, reason represents logic, rational thought and mental construction. Reason has connotations of rationality and intelligence, so when the plank, or the thing that supports one's reason or sanity, breaks in one's mind, it loses its normalcy. In “. 2019.