Kept beating-beating-till I thought
My Mind was going numb-" - Emily Dickinson
Out of all eight of the poems we read, I feel like this one had the most imagery involved in it. Imagery is the representation through language of sense experience. Poetry appeals directly to our senses. This particular poem by Emily Dickinson is effective in portraying all the senses except for one: sight. This only seems logical considering the funeral is taking place in the mind of the speaker, where there would be no sight anyway. The sense of hearing is probably the most dominant of all the sentences in this poem. For example, words such as "creak," "beating," "ear," and "silence" are found throughout. The imagery of this poem is most effective because with the use of all but one of the different senses, the reader can develop a full, mental picture of what is happening, considering it is taking place inside the mind of the reader and not physically occurring. Something that later occurred to me is that maybe the purpose of this poem is to show how the speaker felt as if he or she was going insane, saying that his or her "mind was going numb." The speaker is in a casket and can hear everything going on around him or her. It made me definitely question how awful would it be to be buried alive?
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