Theme Analysis of Because I Could Not Stop for Death from the perspective of Cohesion

彭小玲 章球圓

Poetry is a special literary genre.Poets skillfully use cohesive means to ex-press the theme.Halliday and Hasan divide cohesion into two main types:gram-matical cohesion and lexical cohesion.The poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death is a masterpiece of Emily Dickinson,which embodies the poet's unique

“passed”was repeated three times,which enhanced the sense of rhythm of the text.The three experiences described by the poet exactly symbolize the three stages of human life:childhood,adulthood and old age.It can be seen that the poet skillfully uses the repetition of words to improve the coherence and com-view of life and death.This article takes the poem as an example,by analyzing

pactness of the poem.In addition“,passed”is euphemism for“death”.Therefore,grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion used in the poems,in order to analyze the theme of this poem.

1.??? Grammatical cohesion:

In the poem Because I Could Not Stop for Death,grammatical cohesion mainly includes reference,omission and conjunction.

1.1? Reference

Reference is a grammatical means used by the speaker in order to imply what has been mentioned before or has not appeared.Take the first stanza as an through repeated word,the theme of this poem is implied:shortness is eternity,and death is eternal life.

2.2? Synonymy

Synonymy is about different forms of expression of the same meaning,which can make poetry continuity and enhance the vividness of poetry.In this poem,the author uses several synonymous words such as“stopped”and“paused”,“slow-ly”and“no haste”,“Gossamer”and“Tulle”,“Gown”and“Tippet”to express the slow and continuous passing of time,not to accelerate or decelerate with peo-example“,Because I could not stop for Death——He kindly stopped for me——ples busyness or leisure,until the end of life??? death.The using of“Immor-The Carriage held but just Ourselves——And Immortality”.In all reference means,the pronoun and demonstrative play an important role.In this poem,pro-nouns appear a total of19times,such as“I”,“me”,“ourselves”,“his”,“my”,etc.For instance,the pronoun“He”points to the“death”that occurred in the first line,and“ourselves”points to the previous“He”and“me”.The poet also uses a large number of demonstrative words:that,this,the,etc.These demonstra-tives make the rhythm of poetry coherent,and also show the author's calmness in

tality”and“Eternity”also contributes to revealing and emphasizing the theme:death is the way that continues life,death is immortality and eternity.

2.3? Metonymy

The relationship metonymy can be expressed as X is a part of Y.There are many words in this poem expressing the relationship between the whole and the parts.For example,“HorsesHeads”appearing in the last stanza and“Car-riages”appearing in the third line of the first stanza form part-to-whole relation-

facing death.

ships.Similarly“,

House”,“Roof”and“Cornice”,which appear in the fifth stan-1.2? Omission

Omission means omitting certain elements in a sentence,such as words or phrases.The second line of the fourth stanza,“The Dews drew quivering and chill”omits the pronoun“my”,but“my”has not appeared in the previous text,so in order to understand the poetry and poets emotions,the reader should go deep understanding the cultural background and situational factors of the poet's creation.Only in this way can readers grasp the coherence of poetry and under-stand the theme that the poet wants to express.

1.3? Conjunction

Conjunction means connecting words or other components with word mark.Conjunctions mainly include parallel conjunctions and subordinate conjunctions in this poem.The word“because”in the first line of the first stanza“Because I could not stop for Death—”combines the first line with the second line,which can also explain the authors attitude toward death and contribute to revealing the theme of“life and death”.The author uses the parallel conjunction to connect“He knew no haste”and“I had put away”,suggesting that the reader's two par-allel sentences are related to the first sentence:“We slowly drove”,which show the author having“prepared”well for death.

2.??? Lexical Cohesion:

In this poem,lexical cohesion mainly includes word repetition,synonymy,metonymy and antonymy.

2.1? Word repetition

Word repetition is a frequently used cohesive means in poetry.In the third stanza of this poem,the author wrote about the“We passed the school”,“We

passed the Fields of Gazing Grain”,and“We passed the Setting Sun”.The word

za,form a whole and part relationship.It can be seen that the relationship be-tween the whole and the part is an invisible clue connecting the whole poem,which reveal the theme that life and death is part of immortality and eternity.

2.4Antonymy

The proper use of words and phrases that have opposite meaning can en-hance the coherence and sublimate the theme.For example,in this poem,the au-thor uses a pair of antonyms,“stopped”and“drove”,to express the author's in-ner conflict about death.The poet once longed for death but also feared death.The author uses this set of antonyms to reveal the theme that death is also eternal.This poem Because I Could Not Stop for death contains six stanzas,reflect-

ing the whole process of human beings from birth to death.This article,taking this poem as an example,analyzes two cohesive means,grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion,used in the poem,which deepened the understanding of the po-em about the theme of life,immortality,eternity,and death.

References

[1]?? 胡壯麟，錢軍，葉起昌.《語言學教程》［M］.第 5版，北京大學出版社，2017.85-86,91-96.

[2]?? 陳世丹，屈曉麗.21世紀新編美國文學選讀[M].中國人民大學出版社,2013，11(5):144-146.

About the author Peng Xiaoling(2000-),female,Han,Yichun,Jiangxi,Bachelor,research direc-tion:English.

Zhang Qiuyuan(1997-),female,Han,Guilin,Guangxi,Bachelor,research di-rection:English.