I Felt a Funeral in my Brain presents the narrative image of a person slowly descending into madness and offers the reader a first-person perspective of the whole affair. This poem, written by Emily Dickinson, a depressed and antisocial poet, was written in 1862 in the solitude of her own home. Dickinson uses metaphors and images of funerals, boards, and mourners to describe the situation at hand. The main theme of this poem is the journey into madness, from the beginning where “Sense” (line 4) is still reasonable, to the end, where “a table of reason is broken” (line 17). Throughout the poem, Dickinson tells a story, not based on her experience, but rather on her imagination and contemplations about loss of reason and madness. This expository poem I Felt a Funeral in my Brain gives Dickinson's view that the journey into madness originates from one's imagination using imagery, metaphors, and a narrative story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay From the first verse of I Felt to Funeral in my Brain, Emily Dickinson uses morbid metaphors in her narrative. From the first line we understand that this is not a literal funeral, but a metaphorical death. Dickinson uses the metaphor of a funeral to represent that part of her, more specifically her reason, that is dying. Dickinson presents this poem in such a way that she thinks this situation is happening to her. When he says “I heard a funeral in my brain” (line 1), he's not saying it feels like it's in his brain; instead it is part of her. He uses the image of “mourners back and forth” (line 2) to show that his thoughts are restless and confused. When he mentions the constant pace in the third line, this can be explained as his thoughts running metaphorically in his head. The phrase “That sense was breaking through” (line 4) sounds like he is trying to collect his thoughts, but his reason is slowly giving out. This first stanza directs the reader into a melancholy mood using the metaphor of a funeral and sensory imagery to convey its ideas. In the second stanza of I Felt a Funeral in my Brain, Emily Dickinson plays on the human senses to draw the reader into the poem. It leads into the second stanza by saying “and when” (line 5), which shows the reader that this is a narrative poem. In the sixth line, the poet refers to service “like a drum.” This is unusual, because funerals are a quiet event and therefore drums are not usually acceptable in this type of environment. However, Dickinson might link the battery to a headache because her thoughts and reason are both swarming in her brain. Next, he says his head “beats-beats- until I thought my mind was going numb” (lines 7-8). This shows that his brain is starting to go numb, and as the pain goes away, his senses of reason are decreasing. Through this stanza, the reader can see the open progression of Dickinson's declining reason. Dickinson completes the metaphorical funeral by placing her unreasoning self in a coffin and shuts down any hope for the restoration of reason. He begins the third stanza with the words “now then” (line 9) which continues his story. In this stanza, she uses the metaphorical funeral by showing how she is placed in the coffin, on the left, and the emptiness in her head challenges her reason once again. He mentions a religious term in line ten when he says they "creak in my soul." His soul symbolizes the ground on which the funeral took place; And.