TPCASTT Poetry Analysis

 I felt a Funeral, in my Brain - Emily Dickens

Title - The title is referring to the psychological effects occurring to Dickens as she is at a funeral, the sorrow, torment, and grief she is mentally experiencing and how physical, eternal events are affecting her internal self/health

Paraphrase - The main 'persona' in the poem is experiencing a mental funeral, in that he is feeling all the external emotions usually associated with funerals (crying, sadness, grieving, frowns, etc. etc.) inside his mind which is making him sadder and sadder throughout the poem until the point of no return.

Connotation - Mourners - sad people, experience with loss, emptiness, people full of sorrow
                        Treading - walking along, crushing, flattening
                        Numb - Loss/absence of feeling
                        'Lift of box' - referring to a casket
                        Wrecked - damaged, broken
                        Solitary - loneliness, emptiness, on one's own

Attitude - The attitude that Dickens is using through out the text is one of despair and sorrow, utter grief and sadness. Through using wrecked and solitary to describe the character at the of the poem and "creak across my soul" when focusing on the burial of the casket, Dickens is definitely emphasizing the grief and misery of the event, and mainly, of the main character (who could even be Dickens herself)

Shift - The shift in the poem comes at the very last stanza, where the person seems to have a sort of emotional breakdown. As if his or her whole world has come falling down (reality has struck). They've seen the funeral, they've felt in their brain. Now, they're feeling it as a reality- as a real world obstacle to overcome. Time won't pause, people will move on- how will he/she? That's what the person is thinking to him/herself at 1,000 thoughts p/second. Total meltdown - "And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge"

Title Revisited - This poem focuses heavily on mental health/activity - on the realms of one's mind Through the entire text, this person is suffering on the inside while the outside is never mentioned. The physical isn't emphasized, it's what's on the inside - thoughts, emotion, internal pain and suffering. This implies that life's most important/vital/scary/significant moments takes a heavy toll internally in that it's how react to it is what makes the event count. That's what we remember it for, for how we felt and what we thought during the event.

Theme - Emotions make the time and place, our mind either makes us want to member certain events and/or/(both) forget certain events. Internal emotions are expressed through means of reactions and interpretations seen through one's perspective.