THE CURIOSITY ABOUT LIFE IN EMILY DICKINSON S I HEARD A FLY BUZZ WHEN I DIED THROUGH FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

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1 THE CURIOSITY ABOUT LIFE IN EMILY DICKINSON S I HEARD A FLY BUZZ WHEN I DIED THROUGH FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE Trisnawati N. K. A. M. D 1., Suwastini N. K. A 2., Mahayanti N. W. S 3. Jurusan Pendidikan Bahasa Inggris, Fakultas Bahasa dan Seni Universitas Pendidikan Ganesha, Indonesia ayumeidiah1@gmail.com, ariesuwastini80@gmail.com, mahayantisurya@yahoo.co.id Abstrak Keingintahuan adalah salah satu naluri manusia yang mendorong dirinya untuk tahu tentang sesuatu. Tujuan dari penelitian ini mengungkapkan keingintahuan tentang kehidupan yang tertinggal dalam puisi Emily Dickinson yang berjudul I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died melalui bahasa kiasan yang digunakan dalam puisi ini. Analisis tekstual diaplikasikan dalam penelitian ini untuk mengungkapkan bahwa keingintahuan pembicara yang membuat pembicara terus berusaha mengetahui apa yang akan terjadi setelah pembicara dari puisi tersebut meninggal dunia. Melalui simbol, puisi ini menjelaskan bahwa keingintahuan sang pembicara tidak bisa berhenti saat pembicara dari puisi tersebut meninggal dunia. Pikiran pembicara terus mencoba menjawab rasa penasaran sang pembicara. Nafas digunakan dalam personifikasi untuk menunjukkan bahwa pembicara dari puisi tersebut mencoba memikirkan alasan di balik apa yang sedang terjadi. Simile digunakan untuk menunjukkan mengapa pembicara puisi merasa kesepian dalam keramaian orang yang menangis. Synecdoche digunakan untuk menunjukkan bahwa pembicara puisi itu penasaran dengan orang-orang di sekitar peti mati. Jadi, simbol, personifikasi, simile, dan synecdoche digunakan untuk mengungkapkan keingintahuan pembicara tentang kehidupannya yang dia tinggalkan setelah kematiannya. Keingintahuan pembicara menunjukkan bahwa pikiran seseorang akan terus berpikir bahkan dia melewati kematian fisik. Ini berarti bahwa kematian dalam puisi ini hanyalah simbol dari proses yang terhenti namun rasa ingin tahu akan meningkatkan usaha untuk melanjutkan kemajuannya lagi. Kata Kunci: keingintahuan, kematian, kehidupan, majas. Abstract Curiosity is one of human s instincts that pushes her/his self to know about something. The purpose of this study revealed the curiosity about life left behind in Emily Dickinson s poem entitled I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died through the figurative language used in this poem. Textual analysis was applied in this study to reveal that the speaker s curiosity made the speaker keep trying to know what would happen after the speaker of the poem died. Through symbol in this poetry it is explained that the speaker s curiosity could not stop when the speaker of the poem died. The speaker s mind kept trying to answer the speaker s curiosity. 1

2 Breath is used in personification to show that the speaker of the poem was trying to think about the reasons behind what was happening. Simile is used to show why the speaker of the poem felt lonely in the crowd of crying people. The synecdoche is used to show that the speaker of the poem was curious about the people around the coffin. Thus, symbol, personification, simile, and synecdoche are used to express the speaker s curiosity about her life that she left behind after her death. Speaker s curiosity showed that someone s mind would keep thinking even when she or he passed the physical death. This means that death in this poem only symbol of a halted process but the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. Key Terms: curiosity, death, life, figurative language. 1. Introduction Emily Dickinson was one of American Poets. She studied in Amherst Academy for seven years. Emily Dickinson had good behavior; she was a good girl and she was interested in music before she started to write poems (Crumbley, 1995). Her writing was most energetic and prolific in her 20s and the early 30s (Crumbley, 1995). Dickinson mainly wrote privately for her family and her friends. During her 20s and 30s early she produced almost 1800 poems. According to Herman (2014) the characteristics of her style of writing was generally in common meter, liberal use of dashes, capitalization of most nouns, abundant use of slant rhyme, and in general, a compressed style. The compressed style in Emily Dickinson s poem could be represented through figurative language. According to Ashraf (2015) Emily Dickinson carries the poem by using poetic devices namely, repetition, personification, metaphor, irony, capitalizing letters and alliteration. Through those poetic devices it gives the message to the reader. In creating poetry, the use of diction takes an important role. According to Irmawati (2014) diction is the writer s way in selecting the words in order to tell the meaning beyond the words in the good, clear, and right situation. There are two types of diction to deliver the meaning, namely denotative and connotative meanings. Denotative meaning refers to the literal meaning of the word. According to Zaenal (2011), denotative is a word or phrase in which the meaning is reflected by the real meaning as it is. He also defines that denotation is the real meaning of what words mean. So, it can be said that denotative meaning is the specific or concrete meaning of the word. Connotative meaning refers to the implied meaning of the word. It is supported by Gill (1995), who argues that connotations are words or phrases which have various uses in order to say or express something in different meaning from what it really is. In poetry, the use of connotative meaning can be seen through figurative language. According to Patel (2014) figurative language is defined as a certain literary device which is commonly applied by the writer to gain strength and freshness of their literary works expression. By using figurative language, a writer is able to make the content of his or her poetry optimally because the writer could give such a range of meaning by a sort of little word. However, according to Perrine (1982), figure of speech refers to words or phrases that are used by the poet to improve or build the 2

3 imagination of the readers in a poem. It is expressed by using comparison and symbol. Speaking figuratively means saying less than what people mean. According to Perrine (1982) there are several kinds of figurative language, namely metaphor, simile, personification, apostrophe, synecdoche, metonymy, symbol, allegory, paradox, hyperbole, understatement, and irony. One of her famous poems is I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died. This poem dealt with death theme. According to Guan (2016) the poem entitled I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died describes the physical death experienced by the speaker. The same study was done by Jannati (2012) about the analysis of symbolic sign in Emily Dickisnon s death poem. The first result is two kinds of symbol namely, personal symbol and conventional symbol, while the second result of the research shows three major ways of Dickinson in constructing symbol in her death poems, namely indirection, clice (customs and the role of influence or any characteristic of the conventional poems), and personal symbol. However, this does not only describe about death in literary, but there is also a sense of curiosity arising in this poem. The curiosity in this poem means the speaker was curious about something that she left behind after she died. The curiosity can be revealed through figurative language. Figurative language is one of the elements of poetry for delivering someone s feelings beyond he used of the words. The design used in this study was descriptive qualitative design. This study used textual analysis as the method in order to analyze the data. According to McKee (2003), textual analysis is the way the researcher can accumulate data in order to make an educated guess at some of the most likely interpretations that might be made of that text. According to Miles and Hüberman (1994), a qualitative research is conducted in three simultaneous activities, namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The researcher carried out reading and taking out as the techniques of the data collection. 2. The curiosity of life in Emily Dickinson s I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died through figurative language The findings of the curiosity of life left behind in Emily Dickinson s I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died would be presented into six groups of figurative languages. They are symbol, imagery, simile, personification, and hyperbole. 2.1 Symbol The first figurative language found in poem I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died by Emily Dickinson was symbol. Symbol can be defined as something used for, or regarded as, representing something else (Perrine, 1982). There are six symbols that were found in the poem I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died by Emily Dickinson, namely Fly, Heaves of Storm, King, Keepsakes, light, and Windows. The first symbol in the poem was I Heard a Fly buzz-when I died, which occurred in line 1 only once. The word that was identified as symbol in this line is Fly. Denotatively, fly is an insect. The physical appearance of fly can be seen that fly is small insect related to the bad things. Looking at its color, it is black and grey. According to Ferber (2007:77) fly is the generic term for any winged 3

4 insect, and also occurs temporarily. A fly usually flies in the air and the sound is annoying. Buzz is the onomatopoeia of the sound of the fly. A fly is small and it makes the fly something ignored. Fully, the speaker of the poem heard the thing but the speaker ignored that. It is because the speaker was dead. A fly seems to be an insignificant thing. On the other hand, fly is also a symbol for something or thing that has insignificant meaning. In death poem, fly symbolized as the impact of death on life (Piyakun, 2013). As explained above, fly is an insect it is same with bee as well as an insect. In this case, a bee has stringer in order to hurt human as well as fly has disturbing sound and bad habit. Fly perches in dirty place and then perches on the food. It makes a disease. Related with the disturbing noise of fly, the dying person lost her or his mind when hearing the buzzing fly. The use of the fly s sound showed a bad and miserable image of death. Fly could be interpreted as the brief of life. The meaning of fly-buzzed is that it refused to stay silence and it referred to the speaker who refused to die. Although at the end she had to die, in her death she still showed her rejection and showed her curiosity in this poem. Physically human could die, but her or his mind was still thinking. Person could physically death, but death could not kill the person s mind to think. In other words, the death in this poem is a symbol of a halted process of life. But in that halted process one of human s instinct which is called curiosity will be struggling to continue the progress again. The second symbol was Between the Heaves of Storm, found in line 4. The word that was identified as symbol in this line is Heaves of Storm. According to Cirlot (1971:315) storm is everything else that occurs in heaven. The storm was used in this line in order to symbolize the period of time. The speaker used storm in order to give an image for painful death and period of time. Storm had an irregular cycle. After the storm, the normal environment becomes chaotic and messy. It had the same perspective as dying person. When the speaker was dead there would be people crying around the coffin seeing the dying person as seen in line 5. In this poem the storm looks like a painful death. It was because there was a process of dying felt by the speaker. It was shown from the process of the speaker death. The storm represented the period of time where people were very emotional when they first found out someone they cared about was going to die. There were chaos, noise, cry and emotions during this time. So, through the storm as a symbol in the poem which shows the painful process and period of time, the storm reveals the difficult time experienced by the speaker. The third symbol was For that last Onset when the King, found in line 7. The word identified as symbol in this line was King. In this line the word King is capitalized by the speaker. According to Hornby (2010) king is a male ruler of a country, who holds this position because of his royal birth. King has strong meaning in this line, it is because Christian believe that King is God (Piyakun, 2013). It is because the highest king is God. King as the symbol of the God brings the curiosity to the speaker. The speaker described God at the end of her life. And it will be also the last expectation for everyone at the end of the life. Or maybe King was the death which was waiting for 4

5 the end of everyone s life. King is the end of the death s destination. It built the curiosity of the speaker in this poem. The speaker was curious that the speaker met the God or not because the speaker was still curious with the life. It proved that death in this poem is symbol of a halted process but the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. The fourth symbol was found in line 9. It was I willed my Keepsakes Signed away. In this line, the word that stands as a symbol was Keepsakes. The letter of the word keepsakes was capitalized by the speaker. The speaker emphasized the hidden meaning through figure of speech as symbol in this word. As we know, the capital letter occurred in the beginning of the sentence. The word Keepsakes was not the beginning of the ninth line. Keepsakes in this line stands for something that somebody gave to the people. According to Hornby (2010:817) keepsake is a big or small something that somebody gives and it caused the people to remember that person. The speaker of this poem gave the keepsake to the people, the keepsake could be something that is important. It was because in the next line it was a portion of the speaker s life that referred to the keepsakes. The intention of the speaker in giving the keepsakes to the people that she left was because she wanted to be remembered by them. That is why interpretation of the curiosity in this symbol showed the speaker s curios of the keepsakes were given. The speaker was curious that the people would remember her through the keepsakes or would just keep the keepsakes after the speaker already died. The purpose of giving keepsakes is to be remembered. On the next line the keepsakes were signed by the speaker. This shows that the speaker wanted to be remembered when the speaker already died. The keepsakes signed means that the speaker wanted to be remembered after the speaker died. Through this symbol the speaker was curios about the Keepsakes that speaker left. The speaker was curious about whether he or she would be remembered or not. It proves the curiosity of the speaker in this poem was also expressed through the word keepsakes. When she mentioned the keepsakes, her intention was about the things that she would leave. It made her curious about what would happen to her world that she left after her death. Although her eyes would be closed forever, she could not stop thinking. She had a strong curiosity. This means that death here is only symbol of a halted process. But the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. The fifth symbol was Between the light - and me, found in line 14. The word light was categorized as a symbol. According to Hornby (2010) light is the natural force that makes things visible. Through light the things can be seen by eyes. However, the meaning of light in this line was symbol of goodness, life, knowledge, truth, fame, and hope (Ferber, 2007:99). Considering that light was a kind of symbol of hope. In this case the light could bring us out to find the truth. It means the truth gave us light to see or understand and it seems to shine with its own light. Thus, in this line the curiosity represents hope. Through the symbol of light, the speaker was curious whether the truth of speaker s hope would be fulfilled or not. 5

6 The sixth symbol of this poem was And the Windows failed and then. The word Windows was categorized as symbol. Denotatively, window is an opening thing which gives the way to the light so the people can see in and out. In this poem, the window is not window as usual. In this case, the window is the door of the coffin. In 19 century, in America the type of coffin was hexagonal. It has six sides, tapered at the shoulders, and at the feet. The tapered top half of the coffin was tailored perfectly. The word of this line that reveals the inquisitive tone is Windows. According to Hornby (2010), literarily window means that something that makes possible to see the situation outside and make it possible to be learn that situation from what have been seen. But in this line, through the word windows failed, the speaker wanted to tell the readers that she could not to see the world again. The word windows in this line means the case of coffin. And those windows failed, which means the case of coffin was closed. When it was closed, she could not see the world again, she could not have contact with the world again. It means that she died. The coffin accommodates the width of a person s shoulders, and it s this anthropometric shape, which refers to the measurements and proportions of the human body, that proved problematic for some people. The curiosity is represented through the symbol of Window and the speaker was curious with something happened around the coffin, the speaker would know the situation around the coffin. It built a strong curiosity although she was already dead and her death could not make her stop thinking. This means that death here is only symbol of a halted process. But the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. Thus, symbols are used to express the speaker s curiosity about speaker s life left behind after death. Speaker curiosity showed that death in this poem is a symbol of a halted process but the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. 2.2 Personification Personification is a figure of speech in which abstraction lifeless object, an animal, or an abstract idea is made to act like a human being (Perrine, 1982). There is only one personification that was found in the poem I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died by Emily Dickinson. The personification in the poem occurred in line 6 And Breaths were gathering firm, only repeated once in the whole poem. The expression was categorized as personification because the speaker in the poem made the inanimate object unable to do anything. If we look at the previous line, which is The eyes around had wrung them dry, the word breaths in this line modifies the word eyes in the previous line. Denotatively eyes are the part of body which are located in human s face. Eye is one of the two organs on the face that has function in order to see something (Hornby, 2010:521). The eyes were categorized as the inanimate object. However according to Ferber (2007:79) eyes are one of the facial features that appears in literature more often than any others. Eyes could express the thought and feeling. Through this word the speaker wanted to deliver the meaning of something beyond the word of eyes. So, it is impossible for the eyes to breathe. In fact, breathing was only done by humans and living things. As 6

7 the result, it could not happen by the eyes in which they are part of the face which can cry. It made the line And Breaths were gathering firm categorized as personification. The speaker expressed her curiosity through the word breathe in this poem. The breath calmed down, and began to accept the death. Meanwhile, it built the curiosity of the speaker as longer as she could not feel the breath again. It made her strongly think the reason of what was happening. The word breaths were personified by the word eyes. In other words, the death in this poem is a symbol of a halted process of life. But in that halted process one of human s instinct which is called curiosity will be struggling to continue the progress again. It made the word breaths categorized as the personification which represented the curiosity. 2.3 Simile Simile is a type of figurative language that compares two different things as having the same quality and it is usually recognizable by the use of word like or as (Perrine, 1982). There is only one simile found in this poem. The lines categorized as simile are line 2 and 3. It is The stillness in the room and Was like the stillness in the air. They could be categorized as simile by looking at the key word used in comparing two things. The speaker of the poem uses word like to compare the calmness of two situations. The speaker compared the the stillness in the room to the calmness the stillness in the air. These lines reveal the atmosphere of the speaker inside of the coffin. She was lying in a room, which represented as the coffin and it went silent. Next, when the speaker compared the atmosphere in the air, it was the calm situation out of the coffin when the people were calm and silent around the coffin showing the dying person inside the coffin. The speaker expressed the silence that she felt in the atmosphere of her room. She wanted the readers to know how quiet and heavy the air that she felt in her room was. She felt the silence in her room as comparable with the situation of the mourners. She expressed the silence that she felt behind the crowd of the people around her and also the silence of her breath in the last minutes of her life. The silence that she felt in her death brought her curiosity on. She kept feeling and comparing the atmosphere around her. She was curious with the silence of situation that she felt between the mourners around her coffin. She tried to know why she felt lonely in the crowd of crying people. Through those explanations, the speaker kept trying to know what would happen after the speaker died. This means that death here is only symbol of a halted process. But the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. It proved that this simile was categorized as the figurative language used to express the speaker s curiosity. 2.4 Synecdoche Synecdoche is a figurative language in which a part is used for the whole (Perrine, 1982). It means that the use of part thing to stand through the part of thing. There were only one synecdoche that was found in the poem I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died by Emily Dickinson. The synecdoche in the poem occurred in line 5 The Eyes aroundhad wrung them dry. This expression was only repeated once in the whole of the poem. The synecdoche in this line was represented through the word 7

8 Eyes. Eyes mean an organ which are able to see (Hornby, 2010). However according to Ferber (2007:70) eyes symbol of love entered through the eyes of the lover. Eyes can also be interpreted as the people. It was because the people who had eyes could see everything around them. Furthermore, eyes are one part of body which appear in literature more often than other words (Ferber, 2007:79). In addition, eyes is also the word used in order to express the speaker s feeling. According to Juslin (2013) there are some kinds of feeling that could be seen from the eyes, namely happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and love. Based on the explanation above and the context of the whole line, the literal meaning of this line is the speaker of the poem told the reader that there were many people around the coffin that were waiting for the moment of death. In the previous explained that eyes represented the love. So, the curiosity in this line explained that, the speaker curious about the people around the coffin. The speaker was curious if all the people loved the speaker or only sad watched the situation of death around the coffin. The speaker tried to know the meaning of the people s weep. If in general, the people cry with their wet eyes, but she expressed that the people cried until their eyes were dry. The speaker felt curious with that situation. Maybe the people around her felt tired, surrendered, or they were trying to accept the situation. Those explanations made the speaker keep thinking and curious although she would never see those people again. This made the expression categorized as synecdoche used to express the speaker s curiosity about the speaker s life after death. Speaker s curiosity showed that someone s mind would keep thinking although her or his body already died. This means that death in this poem is only symbol of a halted process but the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. 3. Research Implication From the explanation in the previous subchapter, Emily Dickinson s poem entitled I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died shows the curiosity of the speaker about what is left behind her life when she dies. Curiosity is an urge to know or learn about something. The speaker s curiosity is shown through the figurative languages and tone of that poem. The figurative languages that represent the curiosity in this poem are symbol, personification, simile, and synecdoche. The fly buzz, heaves of storm, the king, the keepsakes, the light, the windows, the breaths, stillness and eyes are the words that the speaker used to represent her curiosity through the figurative languages in this poem. Through poetry there are two significance of using poetry in teaching and learning process. The first significance is in improving speaking skill the students can improve their vocabulary. It was because poetry contained of figurative languages. Those figurative languages were made from the words that have different culture. Automatically, the students can improve their vocabulary in speaking skill. The second significance is in improving writing skill. In ability of improving writing skill through poetry it would be shown from the students summary of poetry. Teacher could tell the students to summarize the poetry. 8

9 During the process of summarizing the poetry, automatically it builds the students creativity and critical thinking in order to express their interpretation about the poetry. This was the reason that poetry could improve students writing skill. When the students make the sentences and continue to the paragraph, vocabulary is the most important to express their interpretation and assumption about the poetry. It is because without having many vocabularies it will be difficult for students to produce the sentences. Moreover, in college education through poetry the lecturer can use it as media in teaching in order to understand literature. In the high level, poetry can be analyzed by the students. One of the elements used in poetry is figurative language. The words in poetry that convey figurative language have the meaning beyond the literal meaning of those words. It is that the reason students can think critically and creatively, and use their interpretation in order to make the analysis of the poetry. Those previous explanation above could be the evidence that poetry is not only media used to express people s feelings and experiences. Poetry is the useful media in order to improve students knowledge. It helps the lecturer to use poetry as media in teaching process. As the result, poetry is helpful media for students and lecturer in teaching and learning process. 4. Conclusion and Suggestion The curiosity of life left behind in Emily Dickinson s poem entitled I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died was observed through figurative language. There were 4 kinds of figurative languages that represented the curiosity in this poem, namely symbol, personification, simile, and synecdoche. The words fly buzz, heaves of storm, the king, the keepsakes, the light, the windows, the stillness, the breath, and the eyes are the words that the speaker used to represent her curiosity through the figurative languages in this poem. Through those words, the speaker of the poem expressed the curiosity. The curiosity of the speaker showed that death could not kill someone s mind to think. Although someone dies he or she just keeps thinking what will happen after death. This means death in this poem only symbol of a halted process but the curiosity will raise the effort to continue the progress again. In order to expert the literature subject, the students should do more reading and practice. It would help the students to understand and analyze poetry. In addition, the researcher also saw the new issue that could be used as a research study later on. The imagery of these poems could be analyzed to find certain meanings of this poem. 5. References Arcade, S.M Love and Death in Emily Dickinson s Poetry.IndianJournalof Research, Volume 1, Issue 10. Available in com/paripex/file.php?val=octo ber_2012_ _5fb67 _38.pdf Cirlot, J.E. (1971). A Dictionary 9

10 of Symbols.(2 nd Ed.). London: British Library Catalouging in Publication Data Crumbley, Paul The Biography of Emily Dickinson. Available in eng190/files/2012/10/emilydic kinson.biography.pdf Ferber, M. (2007).A Dictionary of A Literary Symbols.(2nd Ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press. Guan, Yanbo et all. (2017). Analysis of the Poem A Clock Stopped from the Perspective of Disengagement in Cognitive Grammar. International Journal of Language and Linguistics., 5(1). Retrieved 2017, August 5 from group.com/pdf/ j.ijll pdf Herman, Gail Exploring Emily Dickinson. Sulphur Springs High School. Available in Piyakun, Khaanku The Images of Death in Emily Dickinson s Poetry.Srinakhariwot University. Zaenal, M. (2011). The Denotative and Connotative Meanings in the Axe-Advertisements. Retrieved 2017, February 18 from =t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=w pitalconference/herman- Dickinson.pdf Hornby, A.S., In turnbull, J., In Lea, D., In Parkinson, D., In Phillips, P., & In Ashby, M. (2010). Oxford advanced learner s dictionary of current English. Juslin, Patrick N. (2013). What does music express? Basic emotions and beyond. Retrieved November 13, 2017 from mc/articles/pmc / McKee, Alan Textual Analysis: A Beginner s Guide. London: Sage Publiction Ltd. Available in tual-analysis-a-beginnersguide/oclc/ /viewport Perrine, L. (1982). Sound and Sense: An Introduction to Poetry (6 th ed.). Newyork:Harcourt eb&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ve d=0ahukewi2soyc7pnsahvl PY8KHVG3DEUQFggZMAA& url=http%3a%2f%2frepositor y.uinjkt.ac.id%2fdspace%2fbi tstream%2f %2f53 5%2F1%2F101955ZAENAL% 2520MUTTAQIENFAH.pdf&us g=afqjcnhuad_22qvs_9qix OirBeg6VvL5Lw&bvm=bv ,d.c2I 10