"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain"
Emily Dickinson
This poem is FULL of figurative language. To begin, the entire poem in itself is an extended metaphor. I think that it is a comparison of the author's current mental state to a funeral. Within this extended metaphor, there are many other literary devices of which Dickinson takes advantage. For example, "A Service, like a Drum - Kept beating" in lines 6-7 is a simile (Dickinson, 776). There is also a synecdoche in line 9 and another in line 17.
However, the most important thing that Dickinson does with her language is guide the reader on a journey through her thoughts through her references to various parts of her inner being. We begin our voyage in Dickinson's brain; it is literally the organ that controls her bodily functions, but it is figuratively the house of the funeral. We are then transferred to her sense. Finally, a knowledge of what is occurring enters her brain. This causes her brain to then become transformed into her mind or a realm of conscious thought. From the mind, Dickinson leads us to her soul; we enter the emotional aspect of the poem. After the soul, we are presented with her being and finally, reason.
Earlier in the poem, Dickinson had referred to "breaking through" with sense, and again she references a break-through with reason (Dickinson, 776). This comparison of sense and reason lead the reader to believe that the author believes that the two play a very similar role in our individual psyches.
On a completed unrelated note, however, imagine how much fun it is to literally interpret this poem. A bunch of little men conducting a funeral in Emily Dickinson's head...
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