AN ANALYSIS PERSONIFICATION AS A VEHICLE FOR SELFIDENTITY IN THE POETRY OF NOOR UNNAHAR

The study aimed to examine how poet Noor Unnahar employed personification as a literary device to symbolically portray psychological experiences associated with identity development in her 2017 poetry collection "Yesterday I Was the Moon". This study described the definition of personification in accordance with the theory of Kennedy & Gioia (1995) which relates to how the model of identity status expressed by Marcia (1980). It utilized four identity statuses model (identity achievement, moratorium, diffusion, and foreclosure) and literary analysis. Through qualitative literary analysis, the study clarifies how Unnahar's suggestive use of personification tropes potently manifested the psychological experiences inherent to each of Marcia's identity statuses. It analyzed and deductively identified 26 poems featuring personification according to the identity statuses. The findings revealed 12 poems about identity achievement, 7 about moratorium, 5 about diffusion, and 2 about foreclosure. It provided intimate representations of self-actualization for achievement. It personified the unpredictability of active exploration during moratoriums. It highlighted fragmentation and confusion to induce diffusion. It even personified identity-controlling pressures causing premature foreclosure commitments. The study highlighted literature's capacity to illuminate internal experiences through symbolic poetic language linking psychological concepts. It demonstrated how creative expression reflects and encourages identity creation processes. It provided insights into understanding selfhood by examining this imaginative interaction between poetic and scientific domains from multiple angles.