Figurative language is a little tricky, but think of it
this way--if it's not real, it's figurative. So, in this case, if there's not
really a funeral marching around a heart, it's a figure of speech.
Figurative language is intended to draw a picture or create an image stronger than
merely stating the reality. Types of figurative language include some things I'll bet
you've studied or at least heard of: simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and
more.
In this line from The Crucible,
the image is personification--giving human qualities to something non-human or
non-living. A funeral is not alive, thus it can not march; that's what makes it
figuragtive. John is telling Elizabeth that all the dread and dreariness and darkness
of a funeral have settled around her heart, making her sad and mournful and however else
one might feel at a funeral. The word everlasting is a little bit
of hyperbole (exaggeration used for effect), since a funeral and the mourning that
generally accompanies it will usually end. This marching funeral
is everlasting--it just keeps going.
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