AN ANALYSIS OF LOVE EXPRESSION DIFFERENCES BETWEEN COMMON PEOPLE AND THE SPEAKERS THROUGH FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE IN JOHN DONNE’S “A VALEDICTION: FORBIDDING MOURNING” AND “THE SUN RISING”

Abstract

This research aims to identify the employment of figurative language and to reveal the love
expression differences between the common people and the speakers of “A Valediction: Forbidding
Mourning” and “The Sun Rising” through the employment of figurative language. This research applied
qualitative method. The textual analysis method was used to analyze the data. The main data of this
research were words, phrases, sentences related to the employment of figurative language in John
Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and “The Sun Rising”. The key instrument of this
research was the researcher herself. The researcher employed some steps during the data collection, i.e.
reading, note making, interpreting, and categorizing. In conducting the data analysis, the researcher
passed some steps, namely identifying, classifying, re-reading, and making interpretation. To gain data
trustworthiness, the researcher asked her colleges to do triangulations in order to check the data. The
results of this research showed that there were seven types of figurative language found in the “A
Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” and “The Sun Rising”. Those types of figurative language were
personification, metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, apostrophe, and hyperbole. After categorizing
and interpreting the data, the researcher found out that the employment of figurative language was
significance to evoke the readers’ imagination, to reinforce the love, and to make the love expression
unforgettable. Besides, the significances of figurative language employment make the speakers’ love
become different from common people’s love by analogizing and dramatizing the love expression.

Key words: Figurative language, poetry, love expressions