Funeral- Emily Dickinson

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain by Emily Dickinson

There are many odd patterns throughout this poem. One such pattern, is the capitalization of every noun within the text. The one outlier is the word "Being", that is unnecessarily capitalized (Dickinson 776). Maybe this is possibly irrelevant, but each stanza contains one non-concrete noun that is related to the speaker, "Brain, Mind, Soul, Being, Reason". It is obvious that Dickinson is trying to communicate to us that all of the sights that are being portrayed are unreal images that sprout from her imagination. This poem seems to be describing the eventual death of her brain. Yes, usually when one dies so does their brain, however I mean a slow deterioration of the mental health until it is reduced to a limbo like state. She says that as she is lifted into the whole, "And then a Plank in Reason, broke," like her reasoning is becoming null and void. Then she finishes the poem with an unfinished thought, as though her mental health had deteriorated to the bitter end. That is why she senses mourners in her head. It is how she feels about her dying mental health.