20 pages 40 minutes read

Emily Dickinson

I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1890

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Poem Analysis

Analysis: “I Felt a Cleaving in My Mind”

Even for contemporary readers not familiar with the magnitude and reach of her oeuvre, Emily Dickinson is a known commodity. She is simply the Un-poet: unmarried, unloved, unhappy, unsatisfied, unknown, unattractive (she famously compared her face to a kangaroo’s), unread and unpublished, unappreciated. It is tempting to let the poem rest on the simplification of a quasi-literal reading that reflects the Un-poet. In this reading, Dickinson, herself long seen as a troubled individual, the prototype of the emo-goth hermit who wrestled with depression and melancholia, lays out how it feels to be slowly, steadily faced with mental health conditions, perhaps clinical depression, among others. In this reading of the poem, the cleaving of the brain represents a kind of metaphor for the difficult reality of the onset of psychiatric disorders, perhaps even schizophrenia or the first irreversible signs of a fast-approaching dementia, how in the second stanza the poet simply bids farewell to even the hope that her mental acuity might ever return, that her mental health has forever rendered hope itself ironic. She is forever left with pieces. Within this reading, the poem becomes a claustrophobic echo chamber, encroaching confusion contemplating the agonies and ironies of, well, encroaching mental health experiences.

Related Titles

By Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

A Bird, came down the Walk

Emily Dickinson

A Bird, came down the Walk

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

A Clock stopped—

Emily Dickinson

A Clock stopped—

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)

Emily Dickinson

A narrow Fellow in the Grass (1096)

Emily Dickinson

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Emily Dickinson

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

"Faith" is a fine invention

Emily Dickinson

"Faith" is a fine invention

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)

Emily Dickinson

Fame Is a Fickle Food (1702)

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

Hope is a strange invention

Emily Dickinson

Hope is a strange invention

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers

Emily Dickinson

"Hope" Is the Thing with Feathers

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

I Can Wade Grief

Emily Dickinson

I Can Wade Grief

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain

Emily Dickinson

I Felt a Funeral, in My Brain

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

Emily Dickinson

If I Can Stop One Heart from Breaking

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

If I should die

Emily Dickinson

If I should die

Emily Dickinson

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE
logo

If you were coming in the fall

Emily Dickinson

If you were coming in the fall

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

Emily Dickinson

I heard a Fly buzz — when I died

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who Are You?

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

Much Madness is divinest Sense—

Emily Dickinson

Much Madness is divinest Sense—

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

Success Is Counted Sweetest

Emily Dickinson

Success Is Counted Sweetest

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

Tell all the truth but tell it slant

Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

The Only News I Know

Emily Dickinson

The Only News I Know

Emily Dickinson

Study Guide
logo

There is no Frigate like a Book

Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

Emily Dickinson