CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1. 1 General Background of the Study
Everyone has a desire to improve his or her knowledge. One of the activities to increase knowledge is by reading. We will get a lot of information through reading. One of reading materials is literary work, such as poem, novel, short story and drama.
Such literary works mentioned above are the products of creative compositions of an author. Each of the writers creating a certain literary work owns a different life background. He or she may be a person from high class, middle class or even lower class.
There is a statement clarifying that the life background of an author will influence the literary work he or she composed. According to Rene Wellek and Austin Warren “the main reason of literary work given birth is the composer himself or herself namely an author. That is why the explanation of personality and the author’s life is the oldest and established method in the literary work study”. Furthermore, it is also said that biography explains and clarifies the truth composition process of literary work (Rene Wellek &Austin Warren, 1977:82). Based on the previous explanation, the writer wants to present to the readers that there is an influence of author’s life background on the literary work he or she created.
Emily Dickinson is one of the great female poets in America in nineteenth century. She was the poet growing in a well-known and educated family. Calvinism, Transcendentalism, and Puritanism influenced the environment where she lived. Even, her family was adhering strictly to one of them called Calvinism. As long as she lived her life, the environment around her absolutely influenced her.
She spent almost the whole life of hers by writing a lot of poems. She had written many poems for the entire of her life. Most of her poems are about love, nature and death. The poem entitled “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” is one of hers, which tells us about death. By analyzing this poem, the writer wants to know whether or not there is any influence of Emily Dickinson’s life background on the concept of death found in the poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”.
1. 2 Reason for Choosing the Topic
Emily Dickinson is a great poet with a unique life background. The environment around her, the education she got, and the books she read influenced the poems she wrote. Her poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” was inspired and influenced by such aspects mentioned above. She was also inspired on the concept of death from her past experience when she found the person close to her died one by one. Emily Dickinson wrote this poem and drove the readers to realize that death is not frightening just like what in their mind.
Although Emily Dickinson had not experienced death yet at that time, she tried to write down her expression dealing with death through her poem. The aim of analyzing Emily’s poem is: the readers generally will understand that any feeling and happening at a certain time in someone’s life can influence and inspire the process of one’s creative composition.
1. 3 Statements of the Problem
T he general problem of this study is: “Is there any influence of Emily Dickinson’s life background on the concept of death found in her poem entitled “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In order to make this study easier to solve, it is divided into sub problems, as follows:
1. How does her religious background give influence on her perception of death?
2. How does her past experience give contribution to her perception of death?
1. 4 Objectives of the Study
The main objective of this study is to discover the influences of Emily Dickinson’s life background on the concept of death found in her poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. The main objective is expanded into two sub objectives, as follows:
1. To describe whether her religious background give influence to her perception of death.
2. To describe whether her past experience give contribution to her perception of death.
1. 5 Significance of the Study
This study is significant in the following way; first, it may open or even change the readers view dealing with death, which is depicted as the most avoidable scaring event. Second, this study is able to drive the readers to become more aware and appreciate life before death come to us. Third, this study will give a little contribution to the readers, especially the students in enjoying, understanding and studying the literary work deeply, particularly poems. It is because certain poems commonly give some important and worthy lessons to learn. Finally, this study will motivate the students and the readers in general to do further study on other aspects.
1. 6 Outline of the Report
This final project is presented in five chapters. Each chapter explains different topics. Chapter I is Introduction, which explains general background of the study, reasons for choosing the topic, statements of the problem, objectives of the study, significance of the study, and outline of the study.
Chapter II presents Review of Related Literature, which comprises the general information of Calvinism, Puritanism, and Transcendentalism, the concept of death, background of Emily Dickinson and her poems, theory of biography and literary interpretation.
Next, Chapter III describes Method of Investigation. It comprises the object of the study, type of the data and the steps of the collecting data, and the procedure of analyzing data.
Chapter IV discusses The Influences of Emily Dickinson’s life background on the Concept of Death found in her poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. This chapter contains the analysis of the poem, the concept of death found in the poem, and the influences of Emily Dickinson’s life background on the Concept of Death found in her poem. And the last chapter, Chapter V presents Conclusions and Suggestions.
